THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 


MY  THREE  YEARS 
IN  AMERICA 


BY 

COUNT  BERNSTORFF 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1920 


r 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,    BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE  SCRIBNER   PRESS 


College 
Library 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION    ...............    .  1 

CHAPTER 

I.    GERMANY  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES  BEFORE  THE 

WAR      ..............  13 

II.     THE  GERMAN  PROPAGANDA  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  35 

III.  POLITICAL   EVENTS  PRECEDING  THE  "LUSITANIA" 

INCIDENT  ..............  58 

IV.  ECONOMIC  QUESTIONS      ..........  80 

V.    THE  SO-CALLED  GERMAN  CONSPIRACIES    ....  101 

VI.    THE  "LUSITANIA"  INCIDENT    ........  127 

VII.    THE  "ARABIC"  INCIDENT    .........  166 

VIII.  THE  SECOND  '  '  LUSITANIA  "  CRISIS  .......  212 

IX.    THE  "  SUSSEX  "  INCIDENT    .........  241 

X.  AMERICAN  MEDIATION  ..........  270 

XI.  THE  RUPTURE  OF  DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS  ....  353 

XII.  THE  RETURN  HOME  ...........  393 

INDEX  417 


1 ! 76308 


I 


MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 


MY   THREE    YEARS   IN   AMERICA 


INTRODUCTION 

MY  FUNDAMENTAL,  POLITICAL  VIEWS  BEFOBE  AND 
DURING  THE  WAR 

IT  was  in  my  own  home,  the  German  Embassy  in  Lon- 
don, where  the  atmosphere  was  entirely  political,  that  I 
learned  my  first  steps  in  politics.  My  father  did  not  be- 
long to  that  class  of  diplomats,  so  prevalent  to-day,  who 
treat  politics  as  an  occupation  to  be  pursued  only  in 
their  spare  time.  His  whole  life  was  consecrated  to  the 
cause  of  the  German  nation,  and  from  my  earliest  child- 
hood my  mind  was  filled  with  the  same  idea,  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  others. 

Owing  to  my  father's  share  in  the  negotiations  which 
brought  about  the  marriage  of  the  Emperor  Frederick 
with  the  Princess  Royal  of  England,  the  Imperial  couple 
became  closely  Connected  with  my  parents,  and,  as  Crown 
Prince  and  Princess,  frequently  resided  at  the  Embassy 
in  London.  It  was  the  entourage  of  the  Emperor  Fred- 
erick that  first  inspired  in  me  those  political  views, 
which,  during  a  long  diplomatic  career,  gradually 
crystallized  into  the  deep-rooted  convictions  of  my  polit- 
ical outlook.  I  believed  Germany's  salvation  to  lie  in 
the  direction  of  a  liberal  development  of  Unification  and 
Parliamentary  Government,  as  also  in  an  attitude  of 
consistent  friendliness  towards  England  and  the  United 
States  of  America.  Thus,  to  use  a  modern  phrase,  I 

1 


2  MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

was  an  avowed  supporter  of  the  Western  Policy.  At 
the  present  moment,  while  we  are  standing  as  mourners 
at  the  grave  of  our  national  hopes,  I  am  more  than  ever 
convinced,  that  had  this  policy  been  steadily  pursued, 
we  should  have  been  spared  the  catastrophe  that  has 
overtaken  us. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  will  not  deny,  that  even  the 
Oriental  Policy  would  have  proved  a  feasible  political 
scheme,  if  only  we  had  decided  to  pursue  it  in  good  time. 
Albeit,  I  am  of  opinion  that  even  Bismarck  had  already 
started  us  in  the  direction  of  the  Western  Policy,  when 
in  1879  he  decided  in  favor  of  Austria-Hungary  and  not 
Russia.  Despite  all  that  the  careworn  recluse  of  Fried- 
richsruhe  may  have  written  against  Caprivi's  policy, 
which  was  decidedly  Western  in  tendency,  he  was  him- 
self the  founder  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  which,  without 
the  good-will  of  England,  could  not  have  come  into  ex- 
istence. Had  we  pursued  an  Eastern  Policy,  though  it 
would  ultimately  have  led  to  the  .sacrifice  and  partition 
of  Austria-Hungary,  it  would  not  have  secured  us  those 
advantages  in  the  Orient  of  which  Marschall  speaks. 
Nevertheless,  I  have  always  regretted  that  we  sent  such 
a  first-rate  man  to  Constantinople,  for  him  ultimately 
to  become  the  able  director  of  the  false  policy  which  we 
pursued  there.  There  is  an  Oriental  proverb  which 
says:  " Never  lay  your  load  on  a  dead  camel's  back." 

If,  as  I  always  used  to  hope,  we  had  resolved  to  adopt 
the  Western  Policy,  we  should  in  any  case  have  had  to 
be  prepared,  in  certain  circumstances,  to  venture  with 
England's  help  upon  a  war  against  Russia.  And  the 
experiences  of  the  Five- Years  War  have  taught  us  that 
we  should  have  won  such  a  conflict  with  ease.  I  never 
wanted  a  war  with  Russia,  and  was  never  an  enemy  of 
that  country ;  but  I  believed  that  our  position  among  the 
nations  of  the  world  would  compel  us  to  decide  one  way 


MY  POLITICAL  VIEWS  3 

or  the  other,  and  I  felt,  just  as  Caprivi  did,  that  we 
should  not  very  well  be  able  to  avoid  war.  Even  if,  in 
the  event  of  a  war  between  the  Triple  Alliance  and 
Russia  and  France,  England  had  only  maintained  an 
attitude  of  friendly  neutrality,  this  would  have  proved 
very  much  more  favorable  for  us  than  the  situation 
which  developed  out  of  the  Encirclement  Policy  (Ein- 
kreisungspolitik).  Furthermore,  had  we  pursued  the 
Western  Policy,  we  should  have  had  to  reckon  with 
the  possibility  of  England's  wishing  to  moderate,  even 
in  a  perfectly  friendly  manner,  our  somewhat  explosive 
economic  development.  I  should  not,  however,  have  re- 
garded this  altogether  as  a  disadvantage.  For,  truth  to 
tell,  we  grew  a  little  too  rapidly.  We  ought,  as  "junior 
partners "  in  Britain's  world-empire,  to  have  gathered 
our  strength  more  slowly.  As  an  example  of  what  I 
mean,  take  the  policy  which  France  and  Japan  have 
pursued  since  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  If 
we  had  done  the  same,  we  should,  at  all  events,  have 
been  saved  from  so  seriously  overheating  the  boilers  of 
our  industrial  development,  we  should  not  have  out- 
stripped England  as  quickly  as  we  undoubtedly  could 
have  done  if  we  had  been  left  to  develop  freely,  but  we 
should  also  have  escaped  the  mortal  danger  which  we 
drew  upon  ourselves  by  provoking  universal  hostility. 
It  is  impossible  now  for  me  to  demonstrate  retro- 
spectively that  we  should  have  been  able  to  conclude  an 
alliance  with  England.  Prince  Billow  denies  that  this 
was  ever  the  case.  Maybe  that  during  his  tenure  of 
office  this  possibility  did  not  offer  a  sufficient  guarantee 
of  future  security  to  warrant  our  incurring  the  hostility 
of  Russia.  I  am  convinced,  however,  that  an  alliance 
with  England  would  have  been  within  our  power,  if  we 
had  pursued  Caprivi 's  policy  consistently,  and  the 
Kruger  telegram  had  never  been  dispatched.  Unfortu- 


4     MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

nately  we  have  always  had  statesmen  at  the  helm  in 
Germany, — Bismarck  not  excepted, — the  bulk  of  whose 
views  and  knowledge  were  essentially  continental,  and 
who  never  felt  quite  at  home  with  English  ways  of 
thinking.  I  feel  perfectly  satisfied  on  this  point,  how- 
ever, that  English  commercial  jealousy,  with  which  we 
naturally  had  to  reckon,  would  not  have  proved  an  in- 
superable obstacle  to  a  good  understanding  with  Eng- 
land, provided  that  we  had  declared  ourselves  ready,  if 
necessary,  to  fight  Russia. 

The  policy  of  the  free  hand,  which  we  pursued  until 
the  outbreak  of  war,  aimed  at  the  highest  possible  re- 
sults. Prince  Billow,  who  was  the  inaugurator  of  this 
policy,  might  possibly  have  known  how  to  steer  us 
through  the  "  Danger-Zone "  without  provoking  war. 
And  then  in  a  few  years  to  come,  we  should  have  become 
so  strong  and  should  have  left  the  Danger-Zone  so  very 
far  behind  us,  that,  as  far  as  human  judgment  could 
tell,  we  should  no  longer  have  had  any  need  to  fear  war. 
German  naval  construction  from  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century  certainly  made  our  relationship  to 
England  very  much  worse,  while  it  also  materially  in- 
creased the  danger  of  our  position  from  the  standpoint 
of  world-politics.  The  Bulow-Tirpitz  notion  of  a  Risiko- 
flotte*  may,  however,  only  have  been  practicable  on 
condition  that  our  diplomacy  were  sufficiently  skilful  to 
avoid  war,  as  long  as  the  "risk"  idea  in  England  was 
not  able,  of  itself,  to  maintain  peace* 

German  foreign  policy  had  been  ably  conducted  by 
Bismarck;  but,  in  keeping  with  the  times,  it  had  been 
almost  exclusively  Continental  and  European.  At  the 
very  moment  when  Bismarck  withdrew  from  the  arena, 
Germany's  era  of  world-politics  began.  It  was  not  the 

•Literally:  a  fleet  for  risks  or  for  taking  risks;  a  fleet  to  be  used  at  a 
venture.  • 


MY  POLITICAL  VIEWS  5 

free  bloom  of  our  statesmen's  own  creative  powers;  but 
a  bitter  necessity,  born  of  the  imperative  need  of  pro- 
viding Germany's  increasing  population  with  sufficient 
foodstuffs.  But  it  was  not  our  world-politics,  as  such, 
that  brought  about  our  downfall ;  but  the  way  we  set  to 
work  in  prosecuting  our  policy.  The  Triple  Alliance, 
with  its  excellent  Reinsurance  Treaty,  did  not  constitute 
a  sufficiently  powerful  springboard  from  which  to  take 
our  plunge  into  world-politics.  The  Reinsurance  con- 
tract could  not  be  anything  but  a  makeshift,  which  merely 
deferred  the  inevitable  choice  which  had  to  be  made 
between  Russia  and  Austria-Hungary.  In  the  course  of 
time,  we  should  either  have  had  to  decide  entirely  in 
favor  of  Russia,  in  the  manner  outlined  above,  or  we 
should  have  had  to  try  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  England,  upon  terms  which,  at  all  events,  we  should 
not  have  been  at  liberty  to  choose  for  ourselves.  Unfor- 
tunately, however,  it  was  an  axiom  of  post-Bismarckian 
German  politics,  that  the  differences  between  Russia  and 
England  were  irreconcilable,  and  that  the  Triple  Alli- 
ance would  have  to  constitute  the  needle-index  of  the 
scales  between  these  two  hostile  Powers.  This  propo- 
sition was  incessantly  contested  both  verbally  and  in 
writing  by  Herr  von  Holstein,  who  was  then  the  leading 
spirit  at  the  Foreign  Office.  He  perceived  that  its  chief 
flaw  was  the  weak  point  in  the  Triple  Alliance  itself, — 
that  is  to  say,  the  differences  between  Austria-Hungary 
and  Italy  on  the  one  hand,  and  Italy's  dependence  upon 
England's  superior  power  in  the  Mediterranean  on  the 
other.  Furthermore,  he  recognized  the  prodigious  pos- 
sibility, which  was  not  beyond  the  art  of  English  states- 
manship, of  a  compromise  between  England  and  Russia. 
He  did  not  see,  however,  how  the  hostility  of  the  French 
to  ourselves  would  serve  as  a  medium  for  this  universal 
coalition  Against  us. 


6     MY  THEEE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

In  the  last  Entente  Note  of  the  Five- Years  War  there 
is  the  following  passage : 

"For  many  years  the  rulers  of  Germany,  true  to  the 
Prussian  tradition,  strove  for  a  position  of  dominance 
in  Europe.  They  required  that  they  should  be  able  to 
dictate  and  tyrannize  to  a  subservient  Europe,  as  they 
dictated  and  tyrannized  over  subservient  Germany." 

We  Germans  know  that  this  indictment  is  a  lie;  but 
unfortunately  all  unprejudiced  Germans  must  acknowl- 
edge that  for  years  this  lie  has  been  believed  outside 
Germany.  We,  for  our  part,  cherished  similar  views 
about  our  enemies,  nor  did  we  make  a  sufficient  effort 
to  dissipate  their  prejudices.  On  the  contrary  we  con- 
stantly lent  color  to  them  by  means  of  the  extravagant 
and  high-flown  speeches,  which  formed  the  accompani- 
ment to  our  world  and  naval  policy,  and  by  means  of  our 
opposition  to  pacifism,  disarmament,  and  arbitration 
schemes,  etc.,  etc.  The  extent  to  which  our  attitude  at 
the  Hague  Conference  damaged  us  in  the  eyes  of  the 
whole  world  is  no  longer  a  secret  to  anybody.  As  Hein- 
rich  Friedjung  rightly  observes: 

"At  the  Hague  Conference  German  diplomacy  deliv- 
ered itself  up  to  the  vengeance  of  the  pacifists,  like  a 
culprit. " 

During  my  tenure  of  office  in  Washington  I  succeeded 
on  three  occasions  in  coiring  to  an  agreement  with  the 
Government  there  regarding  the  terms  of  an  arbitration 
treaty.  All  three  treaties  were,  however,  rejected  in 
Berlin,  and  consequently  in  America  I  never  ceased  from 
being  questioned  reproachfully  as  to  the  reason  why  the 
United  States  had  been  able  to  conclude  arbitration 


MY   POLITICAL   VIEWS  7 

treaties  with  every  other  State  in  the  world,  but  not  with 
Germany. 

The  Entente  Note,  already  quoted  above,  contained 
this  further  statement: 

"As  soon  as  their  preparations  were  complete,  they 
encouraged  a  subservient  ally  to  declare  war  against 
Serbia  at  forty-eight  hours'  notice,  knowing  full  well  that 
a  conflict  involving  the  control  of  the  Balkans  could  not 
be  localized  and  almost  certainly  meant  a  general  war. 
In  order  to  make  doubly  sure,  they  refused  every  attempt 
at  conciliation  and  conference  until  it  was  too  late,  and 
the  world  war  was  inevitable  for  which  they  had  plotted, 
and  for  which  alone  among  the  nations  they  were  fully 
equipped  and  prepared." 

The  leaders  of  the  Entente  Powers  would  like  to  exalt 
this  distortion  of  history  into  a  dogma,  in  order  that 
their  various  peoples  may  not  bring  any  unpleasant 
charges  against  them.  And  yet  the  historical  truth  is 
already  pretty  clear  to  all  who  look  for  it  honestly  and 
without  prejudice.  The  German  Government  believed 
that  the  Serbian  propaganda  would  annihilate  Austria- 
Hungary,  and  hoped,  moreover,  that  her  last  faithful 
ally  would  experience  a  political  renaissance  as  the  result 
of  her  chastisement  of  Serbia.  That  is  why  they  gave 
Count  Berchtold  a  free  hand,  in  the  belief  that  Count 
Billow's  success  over  the  Bosnian  crisis  could  be  re- 
peated. Meanwhile,  however,  the  situation  had  changed. 
Russia  and  France,  relying  upon  England's  help,  wanted 
to  risk  a  war.  When  the  German  Government  saw  this 
they  tried,  like  a  driver  of  a  car  about  to  collide  with 
another  vehicle,  to  jam  on  all  breaks,  and  to  drive  back- 
wards. But  it  was  then  too  late.  The  mistake  our  Gov- 
ernment made  was  to  consent  to  Austria-Hungary's 


8     MY  THEEE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

making  so  daring  an  experiment,  at  a  moment  of  such 
critical  tension. 

It  is  not  true  either  that  we  were  thoroughly  equipped 
and  prepared  for  war.  We  had  neither  sufficient  sup- 
plies of  munitions,  foodstuffs  and  raw  materials,  Jior  any 
plan  of  campaign  for  a  war  with  England.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  we  should  not  have  been  defeated  if  we  had 
abided  firmly  by  our  defensive  policy.  The  heroic  spirit 
displayed  by  the  German  people  surpassed  all  bounds, 
and  they  believed  quite  honestly  that  they  were  fighting 
a  war  of  defence.  If  our  policy  had  been  conducted  with 
corresponding  consistency  we  should  have  saved  our  po- 
sition in  the  world.  We  ought  always  to  have  borne  in 
mind  the  analogy  of  the  Seven  Years  War,  in  order  to 
have  been  ready  at  any  moment  to  extricate  ourselves 
from  the  hopeless  business  with  the  least  possible  amount 
of  loss. 

After  the  first  battle  of  the  Marne,  President  Wilson 
consistently  maintained  that  a  decision  was  no  longer 
possible  by  force  of  arms.  This  view,  which  I  also  shared, 
gave  us  some  common  ground,  upon  which,  despite  our 
other  differences,  we  were  able  to  some  extent  to  work 
together. 

Regarding  Dr.  Wilson's  personality  certain  doubts 
have  been  and  are  still  entertained  by  many  people.  He 
is  the  most  brilliant  and  most  eloquent  exponent  of  the 
American  point  of  view.  But  he  does  not  devote  the 
same  energy  and  consistency  to  the  execution  of  his  vari- 
ous programmes  as  he  does  to  their  formation.  There 
can  be  no  question  that,  as  a  result  both  of  his  origin 
and  his  training,  the  President  is  very  much  under  the 
sway  of  English  thought  and  ideals.  Nevertheless,  his 
ambition  to  be  a  Peacemaker  and  an  Arbiter  Mundi  cer- 
tainly suggested  the  chance  of  our  winning  him  over  to 
our  side,  in  the  event  of  our  being  unable  to  achieve  a 


MY  POLITICAL  VIEWS  9 

decisive  victory  with  the  forces  at  our  disposal.  In  this 
case,  Wilson,  as  the  democratic  leader  of  the  strongest 
neutral  Power,  was  the  most  suitable  person  to  propose 
and  to  bring  about  a  Peace  by  arrangement. 

After  the  opening  of  the  U-boat  campaign,  two  alter- 
natives remained  open  to  us,  one  of  which  we  were  com- 
pelled to  choose.  If  the  prospects  of  a  U-boat  war  prom- 
ised to  secure  a  victory,  it  was  naturally  incumbent  upon 
us  to  prosecute  it  with  all  possible  speed  and  energy. 
If,  as  I  personally  believed,  the  U-boat  war  did  not  guar- 
antee a  victory,  it  ought,  owing  to  the  enormous  amount 
of  friction  to  which  it  could  not  help  giving  rise,  under 
all  circumstances  to  have  been  abandoned;  for,  by  cre- 
ating American  hostility,  it  did  us  more  harm  than  good. 

I,  as  the  German  Ambassador,  in  the  greatest  neutral 
State,  with  the  evidences  of  American  power  all  about 
me,  could  not  help  feeling  it  my  duty  to  maintain  our 
diplomatic  relations  with  the  United  States.  I  was  con- 
vinced that  we  should  most  certainly  lose  the  war  if 
America  stepped  in  against  us.  And  thus  I  realized 
ever  more  and  more  the  supreme  importance  of  prevent- 
ing this  from  taking  place. 

My  communications  to  the  Central  Government  were 
framed  with  a  view  to  inducing  them  also  to  adopt  this 
attitude;  but  they,  of  course,  had  to  form  their  conclu- 
sions, not  from  one  source,  but  from  all  the  sources  of 
information  they  possessed.  At  all  events,  isolated  as 
I  was  at  Washington,  I  could  not  confine  myself  merely 
to  the  task  of  furnishing  my  Government  with  informa- 
tion; but  was  compelled  on  occasion  to  act  on  my  own 
initiative,  in  order  to  prevent  any  premature  develop- 
ment in  the  diplomatic  situation  from  becoming  utterly 
hopeless. 

The  policy  for  which  I  stood  not  only  promised  the 
negative  success  of  keeping  America  out  of  the  war,  but 


10          MY   THEEE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

it  also  offered  the  only  prospect  there  was  of  obtain- 
ing, with  neutral  help,  a  Peace  by  arrangement.  My  be- 
lief that  such  a  peace  could  have  been  obtained  through 
Dr.  Wilson  is,  of  course,  no  longer  susceptible  of  proof 
to-day.  It  may  perhaps  sound  improbable  in  view  of 
the  President's  behavior  at  Versailles.  It  is  my  opinion, 
however,  that,  previous  to  the  31st  of  January,  1917, 
Dr.  Wilson's  attitude  towards  us  was  radically  different. 
I  base  my  assumption  that  Wilson  might  in  those  days 
have  assisted  us  in  obtaining  a  Peace  by  negotiation 
upon  the  following  points : 

(1)  A  Peace  by  mediation  was  the  only  way  in  which 
the  United  States  could  avoid  becoming  involved  in  the 
war,  and  this  is  what  the  American  public  opinion  of  the 
day  wished  above  all  to  prevent. 

(2)  It  is  true  that  even  if  he  had  wished  to  do  so, 
Wilson  could  not  have  declared  war  on  England,  neither 
could  he  by  any  exercise  of  force  have  prevented  the 
delivery  of  munitions  to  the  Allies,  or  have  compelled 
England  to  observe  the  rights  of  nations.     He  could, 
however,  have  obliged  England  to  conclude  a  Peace  by 
arrangement  with  us;  not  only  because  in  so  doing  he 
would  have  had  the  support  of  American  public  opinion, 
but  also  because  such  a  policy  was  in  keeping  with  the 
best  political  interests  of  the  United  States. 

I  therefore  pursued  the  policy  of  Peace  with  undeviat- 
ing  consistency,  and  to  this  day  I  still  believe  it  to  have 
been  the  only  right  policy.  A  thorough  prosecution  of 
the  U-boat  campaign  was  also  a  feasible  scheme.  But 
the  worst  thing  that  we  could  possibly  do,  was  to  steer 
the  zigzag  course;  for  by  so  doing  we  were  certain  not 
only  to  cause  constant  vexations  to  America,  but,  by 
our  half  measures  and  partial  pliancy,  also  to  drive  Mr. 


MY  POLITICAL  VIEWS  11 

Wilson  even  further  and  further  into  the  inflexible  atti- 
tude of  a  policy  of  prestige.  Unfortunately,  however, 
it  was  precisely  this  zigzag  course  that  we  adopted ;  and 
thus,  in  addition  to  destroying  the  prospects  which 
my  policy  had  offered,  according  to  the  view  of  the 
Naval  people,  we  also  crippled  the  effects  of  the  U-boat 
campaign. 

My  policy  might  best  be  described  as  that  of  "a  silent 
resolve  to  obtain  Peace."  It  was  utterly  wrong  to  pub- 
lish our  readiness  for  Peace  broadcast.  We  should  have 
presented  a  strong  front  to  the  outside  world,  and  we 
should  have  increased  the  powers  of  resistance  which 
we  actually  possessed  by  emphasizing  our  strength  both 
to  our  people  at  home  and  to  other  States.  According 
to  my  view,  we  ought,  after  the  first  battle  of  the  Marne, 
to  have  recognized  in  our  heart  of  hearts  that  victory 
was  out  of  the  question,  and  consequently  we  should 
have  striven  to  conclude  a  Peace,  the  relatively  unfavor- 
able terms  of  which  might  perhaps  have  temporarily 
staggered  public  opinion  in  Germany  and  created  some 
indignation.  It  was  not  right,  however,  to  allow  defer- 
ence to  public  opinion  to  outweigh  other  considerations, 
as  it  did  in  our  case.  The  political  leaders  of  the  Em- 
pire ought  to  have  kept  the  High  Military  Command, 
which  from  its  point  of  view  naturally  demanded  firmer 
"assurances"  than  the  general  situation  warranted,  more 
thoroughly  within  bounds,  just  as  Bismarck  did.  Pre- 
sumably the  High  Military  Command  would  have  been 
able  to  perform  its  duties  quite  as  efficiently  if  it  had 
been  prevented  from  exercising  too  much  influence  on 
the  policy  which  aimed  at  a  conclusion  of  peace. 

As  a  politician  I  consider  that  the  ultimate  cause  of 
our  misfortune  was  our  lack  of  a  uniform  policy  both 
before  and  during  the  war.  If,  at  the  time  of  Bismarck's 
retirement,  we  had  made  a  timely  and  resolute  decision 


12          MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

either  in  favor  of  the  Western  Policy  that  he  advocated, 
or  in  favor  of  the  Eastern  Policy,  we  should  have  pre- 
vented the  development  of  a  situation  in  the  politics  of 
the  world  which  ultimately  led  to  our  own  undoing.  If, 
during  the  war,  however,  we  had  completely  abandoned 
the  U-boat  campaign,  and  had  made  every  possible  effort 
to  come  to  an  understanding  with  America,  we  should, 
in  my  opinion,  have  been  able  to  extricate  ourselves  from 
it  satisfactorily.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  also  possible 
that  if  the  U-boat  campaign  had  been  prosecuted  reso- 
lutely, and  without  any  shilly-shallying — a  thing  I  never 
wished — we  should  not  have  suffered  so  complete  a  col- 
lapse from  the  military,  economic,  political  and  moral 
point  of  view,  as  we  must  otherwise  have  done.  Accord- 
ing to  my  view  it  is  the  hesitating  zigzag  course  that  we 
pursued  which  is  chiefly  to  blame  for  the  fact  that  of  all 
possible  results  of  the  epoch  of  German  world-politics, 
the  unhappiest  for  ourselves  has  come  to  pass.  The 
Wilhelminian  Age  perished  owing  to  the  fact  that  no 
definite  objects  were  either  selected  or  pursued  in  good 
time,  and,  above  all,  because  both  before  and  during  the 
war,  two  systems  in  the  Government  of  the  country  were 
constantly  at  variance  with  each  other  and  mutually 
corroding. 


CHAPTER  I 

GERMANY  AND   THE   UNITED   STATES  BEFORE 
THE   WAR 

ANYONE  who  has  lived  some  time  in  the  United  States 
will  feel  with  Goethe  that  "America  is  better  off  than 
our  own  Continent/*  Owing  to  the  almost  perfect  au- 
tarchy existing  there,  grave  economic  problems  never 
really  arise.  Nowhere  else,  during  the  whole  course  of 
my  various  diplomatic  wanderings,  have  I  ever  seen  a 
happier  people,  who  looked  more  cheerfully  into  the 
future.  In  view  of  the  comparatively  sparse  population 
of  the  country,  intensive  agricultural  production  has  only 
become  necessary  in  a  few  isolated  districts;  there  are 
always  purchasers  in  plenty  for  the  rich  surplus  of  raw 
materials  available,  and  industry  has  not  yet  been  di- 
rected solely  towards  export.  As  a  result  of  these  happy 
conditions,  the  American  citizen  feels  but  little  interest 
for  what  goes  on  in  other  countries.  In  the  period  pre- 
ceding the  Five- Years  War,  if  the  political  interests  of 
the  United  States  ever  happened  to  cross  those  of  Eu- 
rope, it  was_almost  exclusively  in  regard  to  American 
questions.  As  a  proof  of  this  we  have  only  to  think  of 
the  Spanish- American  War,  and  of  the  various  incidents 
relating  to  Venezuela ;  whereas  it  was  only  with  difficulty 
that  the  German  Government  succeeded  in  inducing 
President  Roosevelt 's  Administration  to  take  part  in 
the  Algeciras  Conference,  at  which  the  presence  of  the 
United  States  representative  in  no  way  alleviated  our 
task. 

13 


14         MY   THEEE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  Five- Years  War,  the  Foreign 
Policy  conducted  from  "Washington  was  almost  entirely 
Pan-American,  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  the  begin- 
ning and  end  of  it ;  for  even  if  that  versatile  man,  Pres- 
ident Roosevelt,  was  fond  of  extending  his  activities  to 
other  spheres,  as,  for  instance,  when  he  brought  the 
Russo-Japanese  War  to  an  end  by  the  Peace  of  Ports- 
mouth, the  Panama  Canal  scheme  remained  his  favorite 
child.  But  in  the  case  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  it 
was  home  politics,  which  in  America  are  chiefly  respon- 
sible for  turning  the  scales  in  regard  to  Foreign  Policy, 
that  again  played  the  principal  part.  Mr.  Roosevelt 
wished  to  win  over  to  his  side  the  very  strong  pacifist 
element  in  America;  whereas  the  Imperialists — partic- 
ularly later  on — deprecated  these  successful  attempts  at 
mediation,  because  they  prevented  a  further  weakening 
of  both  of  the  belligerent  parties.  Even  Roosevelt 's  Sec- 
retary of  State,  John  Hay,  concerned  himself  actively 
with  the  Far  East,  and  was  known  in  America  as  the 
spiritual  founder  of  the  policy  of  the  "Open  Door."  In 
this  particular  matter,  the  German  Government  fre- 
quently acted  hand  in  hand  with  the  American,  and  it 
was  owing  to  this  circumstance  that  the  Foreign  Office. 
at  Berlin  very  much  wished  to  have  the  United  States 
represented  at  the  Algeciras  Conference.  The  German 
Government  believed  that  the  Americans  would^  also  de- 
clare themselves  in  favor  of  the  "Open  Door"  even  in 
Morocco.  This  assumption,  however,  turned  out  to  be 
a  false  one,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  political  and  eco- 
nomic interest  shown  by  the  United  States  for  countries 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  was  not  sufficiently 
keen.  The  Algeciras  Conference  was  a  fairly  trustwor- 
thy forecast  of  all  that  subsequently  happened  at  the 
Peace  Conference  at  Versailles.  Equally  lacking  in  foun- 
dation was  also  the  assumption,  so  prevalent  in  Ger- 


GERMANY  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES     15 

many,  that,  as  the  result  of  their  energetic  Far-Eastern 
policy,  the  Americans  would  plunge  themselves  into  a 
serious  conflict  with  Japan. 

The  question  of  the  Philippines,  which  arose  out  of 
the  Spanish- American  War  and  the  Cuban  affair,  con- 
stitutes a  certain  contrast  to  the  customary  Pan- Amer- 
ican Foreign  Policy  of  the  United  States.  A  large  num- 
ber of  Americans — possibly  the  majority — would  like  to 
relinquish  the  Philippines  as  soon  as  the  inhabitants  of 
these  islands  are  in  a  position  to  rule  themselves.  At 
its  inception,  the  question  of  the  Philippines  brought  us 
into  a  conflict  with  the  United  States,  which  was  remem- 
bered by  Americans  for  years.  Heinrich  Friedjung,  re- 
ferring to  this  incident,  says: 

"  Quite  superfluously  it  occurred  to  the  German  Gov- 
ernment to  make  our  East-Asiatic  Squadron,  under  Ad- 
miral Diederichs,  appear  before  Manila  precisely  at  the 
moment  when,  in  1898,  the  decision  was  made  regarding 
the  Philippines.  This  was  done  simply  out  of  a  pointless 
consciousness  of  power,  without  any  intention  to  cause 
offence." 

This  criticism  is  partly  justified.  And  yet  the  affair 
was  somewhat  different  from  the  version  of  it  which  the 
American  Ambassador,  Andrew  White,  allowed  to  filter 
through;  for,  seeing  that,  as  the  United  States  did  not 
intend  to  retain  the  Philippines,  they  could  raise  no  ob- 
jection to  Germany's  wishing  to  acquire  them.  Thanks 
to  his  friendly  attitude  towards  Germany,  Andrew  White 
had,  on  his  own  initiative,  exceeded  his  instructions  and 
was  duly  censured  by  his  Government  for  his  zeal.  Nev- 
ertheless, a  misunderstanding  had  occurred,  as  the  result 
of  which  the  Berlin  Foreign  Office  had  acted  in  perfect 
good  faith.  In  the  public  mind  in  the  United  States,  how- 


16         MY  THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

ever,  the  feeling  still  rankled  that  Germany  had  wished 
to  make  a  demonstration  against  their  Government ;  and 
the  English  Press,  which  at  that  time  was  hostile  to  us, 
applied  the  bellows  enthusiastically  to  the  glowing  em- 
bers of  American  ill-humor. 

The  Venezuela  affair,  in  the  year  1902,  which  was  a 
matter  of  lodg'ng  certain  complaints  against  the  Vene- 
zuelan Government,  ended  in  a  similar  manner.  Ger- 
many and  England  together  sent  their  ultimatum  to 
Venezuela,  and  when  no  heed  was  paid  to  it,  they  insti- 
tuted a  blockade  of  a  number  of  Venezuelan  ports.  It 
was  at  this  time  that  I  was  appointed  Secretary  to  the 
Embassy  in  London,  where  I  had  to  conduct  a  good  deal 
of  the  negotiations  regarding  the  Venezuela  question, 
with  the  Foreign  Office.  The  whole  affair,  as  initiated 
by  ourselves,  was,  in  proportion  to  the  German  claims, 
much  too  elaborate.  The  first  suggestion  which  led  to 
the  common  action  on  the  part  of  the  British  and  our- 
selves, came  from  the  English  side ;  but  we  should  have 
been  wiser,  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  own  advan- 
tage, if  we  had  not  listened  to  the  suggestion.  It  was 
absolutely  clear  from  the  start  that  the  American  Gov- 
ernment would  raise  objections  to  this  sort  of  procedure, 
on  the  part  of  European  powers,  in  South  America, 
and  that  England,  true  to  her  usual  custom,  would  climb 
down  before  the  United  States  the  moment  she  recog- 
nized plainly  the  latter 's  displeasure.  And  when  public 
opinion  in  America  raised  a  violent  protest,  and,  inci- 
dentally, resolutely  assumed  that  Germany  wished  to 
obtain  a  footing  in  Venezuela,  the  English  Press  attacked 
us  in  the  rear  by  asserting  that  the  whole  affair  had 
been  engineered  by  Germany,  in  order  to  embroil  Eng- 
land with  the  United  States.  At  President  Roosevelt's 
wish  the  matter  was  finally  settled  with  America's 
help ;  but  in  the  United  States  it  left  behind  the  widely 


GERMANY  AND   THE  UNITED   STATES    17 

prevalent  impression  that  Germany  would  infringe  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  the  moment  she  had  the  power  to  do 
so. 

President  Taft,  who  in  the  year  1909  took  President 
Eoosevelt's  place,  endeavored,  with  his  Secretary  of 
State,  Philander  Knox,  to  develop  still  further  the  pol- 
icy of  the  "Open  Door,"  inaugurated  by  John  Hay.  Both 
gentlemen  felt  the  keenest  interest  in  the  Far  East.  The 
former  had  been  Governor  of  the  Philippines,  the  latter 
had  been  closely  connected  with  the  Pittsburgh  iron  in- 
dustry, and  knew  the  need  of  extending  its  sphere  of 
activities.  Mr.  Knox  suggested  the  proposal  of  interna- 
tionalizing the  railways  of  Manchuria.  When,  however, 
this  American  notion  met  with  response  in  Germany,  and 
apart  from  its  general  rejection  elsewhere,  had  the  fur- 
ther effect  of  drawing  Japan  and  Russia  together  again, 
Mr.  Knox  abandoned  his  active  Far-Eastern  policy,  and 
confined  himself  to  stimulating  the  large  banks  of  Amer- 
ica into  becoming  interested  in  the  building  of  railways 
and  other  economic  means  of  development  in  China.  This 
policy  was  described  as  "Dollar  Diplomacy "  by  the 
Democratic  Opposition,  and  violently  opposed.  When, 
therefore,  the  votes  went  against  the  Republican  Party, 
and  President  Wilson  came  to  the  helm,  he  let  the  Far- 
Eastern  policy  drop.  High  Finance  immediately  seized 
this  opportunity  in  order  to  extricate  itself  from  Chi- 
nese undertakings.  It  had  only  embarked  upon  "Dollar 
Diplomacy"  at  the  request  of  the  Government,  and  the 
venture  had  yielded  but  little  profit,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  Americans  are  not  inclined  to  invest  in  foreign 
securities. 

Secretary  of  State  Knox's  policy,  which  was  always 
supported  by  us,  accounted  for  the  fact  that  the  official  re- 
lations between  the  German  and  American  Governments 
were  never  more  cordial  than  during  the  years  1909-13, 


18         MY   THEEE  YEAES  IN   AMERICA 

in.  spite  of  a  short  disturbance  resulting  from  a  dispute 
over  our  potash  exports  to  the  United  States.  The  best 
proof  of  how  friendly  the  official  relations  of  the  two 
Governments  were  is  shown  by  the  ease  with  which  this 
quarrel  was  settled.  We  were  also  successful  in  con- 
cluding a  commercial  agreement  which  was  satisfactory 
to  both  sides,  and  overcame  the  danger  of  a  customs  war 
as  the  result  of  America's  new  customs  tariffs;  whereas 
Taft's  economic  plans,  which  aimed  at  reciprocity  and 
union  with  Canada,  came  to  grief  for  political  reasons, 
as  the  result  of  Canadian  Opposition,  and  left  behind  a 
bitter  after-taste  both  in  the  United  States,  Canada  and 
England. 

Official  diplomatic  communications  excepted,  however, 
it  must  unfortunately  be  admitted,  that  mutual  misunder- 
standing has  been  the  principal  feature  of  German- Amer- 
ican relations.  In  Germany  there  was  no  understanding 
for  the  curious  mixture  of  political  sagacity,  commercial 
acumen,  tenacity  and  sentimentality,  which  goes  to  make 
up  the  character  of  the  American  people.  The  power 
of  the  Union  was  therefore  underestimated  by  us,  and 
the  high-spirited  utterances  of  American  youthful 
strength  were  more  disapproved  of  than  was  necessary, 
because  they  were  interpreted  as  mere  "bluff"  and  arro- 
gance. We  never  sufficiently  allowed  for  the  fact  that 
the  Americans  are  very  "emotional" — that  is  to  say, 
that  they  are  easily  carried  away  by  their  feelings  and 
then  become  uncertain.  Political  surprises  in  the  United 
States  are  almost  the  rule. 

On  the  other  hand,  Americans  never  give  themselves 
time  to  learn  to  understand  a  foreign  nation.  A  knowl- 
edge of  foreign  languages  is  by  no  means  general  in  the 
United  States.  The  Americans  unconsciously  borrow 
their  thoughts  and  ideas  from  England,  because  it  is  the 
only  nation  whose  literature  and  Press  are  accessible 


GERMANY   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES    19 

to  them  in  the  original  tongue.  Naturally  this  fact  con- 
tributed very  considerably,  before  the  Five- Years  War, 
towards  making  the  comprehension  of  Germany  difficult ; 
because  in  those  days  German-English  relations  were 
growing  more  and  more  unfavorable  every  day,  and  this 
decline  in  friendliness  found  a  powerful  echo  in  the  Eng- 
lish Press  and  other  literature.  The  English  language 
exercises  more  absolute  power  in  the  United  States  than 
even  in  England  itself.  For  example,  it  would  never 
occur  to  any  diplomat  in  Washington  to  transact  his 
business  in  any  other  language  than  English.  Whereas, 
in  London,  I  never  once  heard  the  French  Ambassador 
pronounce  one  word  of  English — even  in  an  after-dinner 
speech — M.  Jusserand  in  Washington  always  spoke  Eng- 
lish. But,  in  spite  of  the  claim  that  the  French  make, 
that  their  language  prevails  in  diplomatic  circles,  he 
could  not  have  done  otherwise;  because  I  have  never, 
during  the  whole  of  the  eight  years  of  my  official  activi- 
ties in  Washington,  met  one  Secretary  of  State  who  had 
mastered  any  other  language  than  English.  It  is  obvious 
that  this  state  of  affairs  opens  all  doors  and  avenues  to 
English  political  and  cultural  influences. 

Thus,  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Five- Years  War,  the 
majority  of  Americans  already  looked  upon  the  Germans, 
however  unconsciously,  through  the  optics  of  the  English 
Press  and  English  literary  publications.  A  large  number 
of  people  in  the  United  States  honestly  believed,  more- 
over, in  the  rumored  German  scheme  to  seize  the  empire 
of  the  world.  Our  enormous  successes  in  the  economic 
field  provoked  unbounded  admiration  and  led,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  an  over-estimation  of  our  power,  which  did  not 
prove  favorable  to  us  politically,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Americans  who  frequently  indulged  in  gener- 
alizations about  Germany  were  prone  to  judge  us  accord- 
ing to  the  German- American  Beer-Philistine,  whom  they 


20         MY   THREE  TEARS   IN  AMERICA 

disdainfully  called  a  " Dutchman."  The  Americans' 
view  of  the  German  people  wavered  between  these  two 
extremes ;  but  every  year  opinion  tended  to  incline  more 
and  more  in  the  direction  of  the  former.  The  phantom 
of  a  German  world-empire,  extending  from  Hamburg  to 
Bagdad,  had  already  taken  possession  of  the  American 
mind  long  before  the  war;  and  in  the  United  States  it 
was  feared  that  the  next  step  would  be  that  this  world- 
empire  would  infringe  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  found 
colonies  in  South  America.  Professor  Baumgarten,  in 
an  entertaining  book,  has  pointed  out  to  what  extent  the 
publications  of  the  Pan-German  party  contributed  to- 
wards promoting  such  conceptions  in  America. 

Our  Press  was  a  little  too  fond  of  making  attacks  on 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  in  particular.  I  was  always  of  the 
opinion  that  we  ought,  openly  and  officially,  to  have  rec- 
ognized this  American  article  of  faith.  As  regards  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  the  question  is  not  one  of  Right,  but 
one  of  Power.  We  certainly  had  not  the  power  to  in- 
fringe the  Monroe  Doctrine,  even  if  we  had  had  the  in- 
tention, which  was  never  the  case.  It  would,  therefore, 
have  been  more  wise  to  acknowledge  it,  and  thus  to  im- 
prove the  political  attitude,  towards  ourselves,  of  a 
country  on  which  we  were  so  very  much  dependent  for 
a  number  of  our  raw-material  supplies.  I  have  often 
wondered  whether  the  Imperial  Government  would  not 
have  regarded  it  as  its  duty  to  avoid  war  at  all  costs,  if 
our  economic  dependence  upon  foreign  countries  had 
been  more  clearly  recognized.  German  prosperity  was 
based  to  a  great  extent  on  the  Germans  overseas,  who 
had  settled  down  in  every  corner  of  the  earth,  just  as 
in  former  days  the  Greeks  had  settled  all  over  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  Germans  overseas  constituted  a  colonial 
empire,  which  was  a  far  more  precious  source  of  wealth 
than  many  a  foreign  possession  belonging  to  other  Pow- 


GEBMANY  AND   THE  UNITED   STATES    21 

ers.  In  my  opinion  not  sufficient  allowance  was  made  for 
this  state  of  affairs. 

Finally,  a  further  cause  of  misunderstandings,  as  I 
have  already  mentioned  in  the  Introduction,  was  to  be 
found  in  the  general  disfavor  with  which  American  pac- 
ifist tendencies  were  regarded  in  Germany.  Nine-tenths 
of  the  American  nation  are  pacifists,  either  through  their 
education  and  sentimental  prepossession  in  favor  of  the 
principle,  or  out  of  a  sense  of  commercial  expediency. 
People  in  the  United  States  did  not  understand  that  the 
German  people,  owing  to  their  tragic  history,  are  com- 
pelled to  cultivate  and  to  uphold  the  martial  spirit  of 
their  ancestors.  The  types  of  the  German  officer  of 
the  reserve  and  of  the  members  of  the  student  corps  are 
particularly  unsympathetic  to  the  American,  and,  for  cer- 
tain German  foibles,  all  sign  of  that  understanding  that 
readily  forgives,  is  entirely  absent  in  the  United  States, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  our  historical  development  is  not 
realized  over  there. 

Although  the  Americans  are  largely  and  unconsciously 
swayed  by  the  influence  of  English  ideas,  we  must  be 
careful  to  avoid  falling  into  the  error,  so  common  in 
Germany,  of  regarding  them  as  Anglo-Saxons.  The 
Americans  themselves,  in  their  own  country,  scarcely 
ever  call  themselves  Anglo-Saxons.  This  term  is  used 
by  the  English  when  they  are  anxious  to  claim  their 
American  cousins  as  their  own.  Occasionally,  too,  an 
American  may  use  the  expression  when  making  an  after- 
dinner  speech  at  some  fraternizing  function.  As  a  rule, 
however,  the  Americans  insist  on  being  Americans,  and 
nothing  else.  On  the  llth  May,  1914,  at  a  memorial 
service  for  the  men  who  fell  at  Vera  Cruz,  President 
Wilson,  in  one  of  his  finest  speeches,  said : 

"Notice  how  truly  these  men  were  of  our  blood.  I 
mean  of  our  American  blood,  which  is  not  drawn  from 


22          MY   THEEE   YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

any  one  country,  which  is  not  drawn  from  any  one  stock, 
which  is  not  drawn  from  any  one  language  of  the  modern 
world;  but  free  men  everywhere  have  sent  their  sons 
and  their  brothers  and  their  daughters  to  this  country 
in  order  to  make  that  great  compounded  nation  which 
consists  of  all  the  sturdy  elements  and  of  all  the  best 
elements  of  the  whole  globe.  I  listened  again  to  this  list 
of  the  dead  with  a  profound  interest,  because  of  the 
mixture  of  the  names,  for  the  names  bear  the  marks  of 
the  several  national  stocks  from  which  these  men  came. 
But  they  are  not  Irishmen  or  Germans  or  Frenchmen  or 
Hebrews  or  Italians  any  more.  They  were  not  when  they 
went  to  Vera  Cruz;  they  were  Americans;  every  one  of 
them,  with  no  difference  in  their  Americanism  because 
of  the  stock  from  which  they  came.  They  were  in  a  pecu- 
liar sense  of  our  blood,  and  they  proved  it  by  showing 
that  they  were  of  our  spirit,  that  no  matter  what  their 
derivation,  no  matter  where  their  people  came  from,  they 
thought  and  wished  and  did  the  things  that  were  Ameri- 
can; and  the  flag  under  which  they  served  was  a  flag 
in  which  all  the  blood  of  mankind  is  united  to  make  a 
free  nation." 

The  above  words  of  President  Wilson  are  the  key  to 
the  attitude  of  the  Americans  who  are  of  German  origin. 
True,  these  people,  almost  without  exception,  still  cling 
to  their  old  home  with  heartfelt  affection;  but  they  are 
Americans,  like  the  rest  of  the  nation.  "Germania  is 
our  mother,  and  Columbia  is  our  bride,"  said  Carl 
Schurz,  and  with  these  words  he  described  the  situation 
in  a  nutshell.  Just  as  a  man  shall  "leave  his  father  and 
his  mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife,"  so  the  man 
who  is  generally  styled  the  German- American  decides  in 
favor  of  his  new  home-land,  when  a  conflict  arises  be- 
tween America  and  Germany.  He  will,  however,  do  any- 


GERMANY  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES     23 

thing  in  his  power  to  avoid  such  a  conflict.  Even  before 
the  war,  we  in  Germany  entirely  failed  to  understand 
the  difficult  and  delicate  position  of  the  American  of 
German  origin.  And  during  the  war  this  was  more  than 
ever  the  case.  The  question  of  the  *  *  German- Americans ' ' 
has  never  been  dealt  with  tactfully  in  Germany.  Our 
greatest  mistake  was  to  expect  too  much  from  them.  The 
Americans  of  German  origin  have  retained  in  their  new 
home  all  the  failings  and  virtues  of  the  German  people. 
We  could  not,  therefore,  blame  them  if  they  showed  less 
interest  and  less  understanding  in  regard  to  political 
questions  than  the  rest  of  America ;  for  did  they  not,  on 
the  other  hand,  distinguish  themselves  by  their  respect 
for  the  established  order  of  things,  and  by  the  fidelity 
and  industry  with  which  they  pursued  their  various  call- 
ings ?  The  inevitable  consequence  of  these  national  qual- 
ities was  that  they  did  not  exercise  the  political  influence 
which  would  have  been  only  in  keeping  with  their  numer- 
ical superiority.  For  instance,  I  might  mention  that,  on 
the  occasion  when  I  first  visited  Milwaukee,  I  was  wel- 
comed by  an  Irish  mayor,  a  circumstance  which  some- 
what surprised  me,  seeing  that  at  the  time  the  town 
contained  from  300,000  to  400,000  Germans. 

In  consequence  of  the  state  of  affairs  described  above, 
the  principal  object  of  German  policy  in  the  United 
States  before  the  war  was  to  try  to  bring  about  a  more 
satisfactory  understanding  between  the  two  peoples. 
Prince  Henry's  journey  to  America,  the  exchange  of 
University  professors  and  school  teachers,  which  took 
place  on  this  occasion,  the  visits  of  the  two  fleets,  the 
American  Institute  in  Berlin,  and  similar  more  or  less 
successful  undertakings  served  the  same  purpose.  Ger- 
man diplomatic  representatives  were  instructed  to  pro- 
mote this  policy  with  all  their  power.  When  I  was  ap- 
pointed Ambassador  in  Washington,  the  Kaiser's  and 


24         MY   THREE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

the  Chancellor's  principal  injunction,  in  taking  leave  of 
me,  was  that  I  should  enlighten  public  opinion  in  the 
United  States  regarding  the  peaceful  and  friendly  inten- 
tions of  German  policy.  Prince  Biilow  also  said  to  me 
that  I  must  without  fail  bring  the  negotiations  about  an 
Arbitration  Treaty  with  the  United  States,  which  had 
been  left  unfinished  owing  to  the  death  of  my  predeces- 
sor, to  a  satisfactory  conclusion.  Despite  these  definite 
instructions,  the  German  Government,  as  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  ultimately  blundered  and  stumbled  over  legal 
quibbles.  In  any  case,  however,  Prince  Biilow  had  mean- 
while vacated  his  office.  The  effect  upon  the  American 
mind  of  our  obstruction  of  this  matter  should  not  be 
under-estimated.  It  helped  not  a  little  to  convince  public 
opinion  in  the  United  States  of  the  alleged  warlike  in- 
tentions of  the  German  people. 

i  In  accordance  with  American  custom,  the  semi-official 
and  semi-private  activities  concerned  with  fostering  a 
better  understanding  between  the  two  States  had  to  be 
published  to  the  whole  world,  and  this  had  the  inevitable 
disadvantage  of  provoking  opposition,  both  in  Germany 
and  in  the  United  States,  among  all  those  who  had  rea- 
sons for  being  hostile.  Unfortunately,  the  official  repre- 
sentatives of  Germany  in  "Washington  were  always  a 
thorn  in  the  side  of  a  certain  section  of  the  German  Press, 
whenever  they  tried,  in  consideration  of  the  American 
attitude  of  mind  and  social  customs,  to  introduce  a 
warmer  feeling  into  the  relations  between  the  two  sides. 
Even  in  the  time  of  my  predecessor,  Speck  von  Stern- 
burg,  the  German  Embassy  was  on  such  occasions 
charged  with  softness  and  an  excessive  desire  to  become 
adapted  to  American  ways;  and  this  remained  the  case 
during  my  tenure  of  office. 

Our  Press  in  general,  moreover,  never  revealed  a  suffi- 
cient amount  of  interest  or  understanding  in  regard  to 


GERMANY  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES     25 

American  affairs.  There  were  only  a  very  few  German 
newspaper  correspondents  in  the  United  States,  and  those 
that  did  happen  to  be  there  were  too  poorly  paid  to  be 
able  to  keep  properly  in  touch  with  American  social  life. 
About  twelve  months  before  the  war,  the  well-known 
wealthy  German- American,  Hermann  Sielcken,  offered  to 
help  me  out  of  this  difficulty  by  undertaking  to  pay  the 
salary  of  a  first-rate  American  journalist,  of  German 
origin,  who  was  to  reside  in  Washington,  and  act  as  the 
representative  there  of  Wolff's  telegraphic  bureau.  I 
immediately  took  steps  to  organize  this  telegraphic  ser- 
vice. Very  shortly  afterwards,  however,  I  was  informed 
by  Berlin,  that  the  telegrams  would  be  too  expensive,  as 
the  subject  was  not  of  enough  interest,  and  in  this  case 
the  Wolff  Bureau  would  only  have  had  to  defray  the 
cost  of  the  actual  telegrams.  This  was  the  way  the  sup- 
ply of  news  was  organized  in  a  country  that  imagined  it 
was  practising  world-politics. 

Mr.  Wilson  took  up  his  quarters  in  the  White  House, 
Washington,  about  a  year  before  the  war,  and  opened  his 
period  of  office  with  several  internal  reforms.  Then  came 
the  American-Mexican  crisis,  and  relations  with  Europe 
in  general,  and  Germany  in  particular,  therefore,  fell 
somewhat  into  the  background. 

Woodrow  Wilson  was  a  University  don  and  an  histo- 
rian. His  works  are  distinguished  by  their  brillianf  style 
and  the  masterly  manner  in  which  he  wields  the  English 
language — a  power  which  was  also  manifested  in  his 
political  speeches  and  proclamations.  Mr.  Wilson  sprang 
into  political  and  general  fame  when  he  was  President 
of  the  University  of  Princeton,  and  was  elected  as  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  of  New  Jersey.  Even  in  those  days 
he  displayed,  side  by  side,  on  the  one  hand,  his  democratic 
bias  which  led  him  violently  to  oppose  the  aristocratic 
student-clubs,  and  on  the  other,  his  egocentric  and  auto- 


26          MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

cratic  leanings  which  made  him  inaccessible  to  any  ad- 
vice from  outside,  and  constantly  embroiled  him  with  the 
governing  council  of  the  University.  As  Governor  of 
New  Jersey,  The  Holy  Land  of  "  Trusts, "  Mr.  Wilson 
opened  an  extraordinarily  sharp  campaign  against  their 
dominion.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  it  is  true,  had  spoken  a  good 
deal  against  the  trusts,  but  he  had  done  little.  He  could 
not,  however,  have  achieved  much  real  success,  because 
the  Republican  Party  was  too  much  bound  up  with  the 
trusts,  and  dependent  on  them.  At  the  time  when  Mr. 
Roosevelt  wanted  to  take  action,  he  also  succeeded  in 
splitting  up  his  party,  so  that  real  reform  could  only  be 
expected  from  the  Democratic  side.  The  conviction  that 
this  was  so  was  the  cause  of  Mr.  Wilson's  success  in  the 
Presidential  election  of  1912. 

In  regard  to  external  politics,  Mr.  Wilson  was  pac- 
ifistic,  as  was  also  his  party;  whereas  the  Imperialists 
belonged  almost  without  exception  to  the  Republican 
Party.  In  spite  of  "Wall  Street, "  and  the  influence  of 
English  ideas  and  opinions  upon  American  society,  Pac- 
ifist tendencies  largely  prevailed  in  the  United  States 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  Five- Years  War;  how  much 
more  was  this  the  case,  therefore,  when  Mr.  Wilson,  in 
accordance  with  American  custom,  gave  the  post  of  Sec- 
retary of  State  to  the  politician  to  whose  influence  he 
owed  his  nomination  as  candidate  for  the  Presidency  by 
the  Democratic  Party.  Thus  did  Mr.  William  Jennings 
Bryan  attain  to  the  dignity  of  Secretary  of  State  after  he 
had  thrice  stood  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  with- 
out success. 

In  all  political  questions,  Mr.  Bryan  followed  a  much 
more  radical  tendency  than  Mr.  Wilson.  His  opponents 
call  him  a  dishonest  demagogue.  I,  on  the  contrary, 
would  prefer  to  call  Mr.  Bryan  an  honest  visionary  and 
fanatic,  whose  passionate  enthusiasm  may  go  to  make 


GERMANY  AND  THE  UNITED   STATES     27 

an  exemplary  speechmaker  at  large  meetings,  but  not  a 
statesman  whose  concern  is  the  world  of  realities.  He 
who  in  his  enthusiasm  believes  he  will  be  able  to  see  his 
ideal  realized  in  this  world  next  Thursday  week  is  not 
necessarily  dishonest  on  that  account,  even  if  he  over- 
looks the  fact  that  things  are  going  very  badly  indeed. 

It  was  believed  in  a  large  number  of  circles  that  Mr. 
Bryan  would  not  accept  the  post  of  Secretary  of  State, 
for  even  at  that  time  everybody  who  was  in  the  know 
was  already  aware  that  Mr.  Wilson  could  only  tolerate 
subordinates  and  not  men  with  opinions  of  their  own. 
Mr.  Bryan,  however,  felt  the  moral  obligation,  at  least 
to  attempt  to  give  his  radical  views  a  chance  of  succeed- 
ing, and  declared,  as  he  took  over  the  post,  that  so  long 
as  he  was  Secretary  of  State  the  United  States  would 
never  go  to  war.  He  even  wanted  this  principle  to  be 
generally  accepted  by  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  with  this 
end  in  view,  submitted  to  all  foreign  Governments  the 
draft  of  an  Arbitration  and  Peace-Treaty,  which  was 
to  make  war  utterly  impossible  in  the  future.  As  is  well 
known,  the  German  Government,  unlike  all  the  others, 
refused  to  fall  in  with  Mr.  Bryan's  wishes.  The  Secre- 
tary of  State  was  a  little  mortified  by  this,  even  though 
he  still  hoped  that  we  should  ultimately  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  the  other  Powers.  Every  time  we  met,  he  used 
to  remind  me  of  his  draft  Arbitration  Treaty,  which  I 
had  forwarded  to  Berlin.  Later  on  I  often  regretted 
that  we  did  not  fall  in  with  Mr.  Bryan's  wishes;  who, 
by  the  by,  during  the  war,  again  returned  to  the  question, 
but  in  vain.  If  the  treaty  had  been  signed  by  us,  it  would 
most  probably  have  facilitated  the  negotiations  about  the 
U-boat  campaign. 

The  diplomatic  corps  in  "Washington  thus  found  itself 
confronted  by  an  entirely  new  situation.  The  Republi- 
can Party  had  been  at  the  helm  for  sixteen  years,  and 


28 

had  now  to  vacate  every  one  of  the  administrative  posts. 
Even  our  personal  intercourse  with  the  President  was 
governed  by  different  formalities  from  those  which  ex- 
isted in  the  days  of  his  predecessors.  Mr.  Eoosevelt 
liked  to  maintain  friendly  relations  with  those  diplomats 
whose  company  pleased  him.  He  disregarded  the  old 
traditional  etiquette,  according  to  which  the  President 
was  not  allowed  to  visit  the  Ambassadors  or  any  private 
houses  in  Washington.  The  friendly  relations  that  ex- 
isted between  Mr.  Koosevelt  and  Baron  Speck  von  Stern- 
burg  are  well  known.  When  in  the  year  1908,  after  this 
gentleman 's  decease,  I  assumed  his  post  at  Washington, 
Mr.  Eoosevelt  invited  me  to  the  White  House  on  the 
evening  after  my  first  audience,  to  a  private  interview, 
in  which  every  topic  of  the  day  was  discussed.  Invita- 
tions of  this  kind  were  of  frequent  occurrence  during  the 
last  two  months  of  Roosevelt's  administration,  which,  at 
the  time  of  my  entering  office,  was  already  drawing  to  its 
close.  For  instance,  Mr.  Eoosevelt  showed  me  the  draft 
of  the  speech  which  after  his  retirement  he  delivered  at 
the  University  of  Berlin. 

My  dealings  with  President  Taft  were  on  the  same 
footing;  for  he  also  was  in  favor  of  an  amicable  and 
unconventional  relationship.  On  one  occasion  he  invited 
me  to  join  him  in  his  private  Pullman  on  a  journey  to 
his  home  in  Cincinnati,  where  we  attended  the  musical 
festival  together.  On  another  occasion,  he  suddenly  ap- 
peared, without  formal  notice,  at  the  Embassy,  while  we 
were  holding  a  ball  in  honor  of  his  daughter,  and  later 
on  he  accepted  an  invitation  to  my  daughter's  wedding. 

President  Wilson,  who  by  inclination  and  habit  is  a 
recluse  and  a  lonely  worker,  does  not  like  company.  He 
re-introduced  the  old  etiquette  and  confined  himself  only 
to  visiting  the  houses  of  Cabinet  members,  which  had 
been  the  customary  tradition.  He  also  kept  himself  aloof 


GERMANY   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES    29 

from  the  banquets,  which  are  such  a  favorite  feature  of 
social  life  in  America,  and  severely  limited  the  company 
at  the  White  House.  Thus  the  New  Year  Reception  was 
discontinued  entirely.  This  attitude  on  the  part  of  the 
President  was  the  outcome  of  his  tastes  and  inclinations. 
But  I  certainly  do  not  believe  that  he  simply  developed 
a  theory  out  of  his  own  peculiar  tastes,  as  so  often  hap- 
pens in  life.  I  am  more  inclined  to  believe  that  Mr.  Wil- 
son regarded  the  old  American  tradition  as  more  expe- 
dient, on  the  grounds  that  it  enabled  the  President  to 
remain  free  from  all  intimacy,  and  thus  to  safeguard 
the  complete  impartiality  which  his  high  office  demanded. 
The  peculiar  friendship  which  unites  Mr.  Wilson  with 
Mr.  House  is  no  objection  to  this  theory,  for  the  latter 
has  to  some  extent  always  been  in  the  position  of  a  min- 
ister without  portfolio.  An  adviser  of  this  sort,  who 
incurs  no  responsibility  by  the  advice  he  gives,  is  more 
readily  accepted  by  American  opinion  than  by  any  other, 
because  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  known  to 
be  alone  and  exclusively  responsible,  whereas  his  min- 
isters are  only  looked  upon  as  his  assistants. 

Generally  speaking,  the  political  situation  in  the 
United  States  before  the  Five- Years  War  was  as  fol- 
lows: On  the  one  hand,  owing  to  the  influence  of  Eng- 
lish ideas,  which  I  have  already  mentioned,  it  was  to 
be  expected  that  a  feeling  of  sympathy  with  the  Entente 
would  probably  preponderate  in  the  public  mind;  while 
on  the  other  hand,  owing  to  the  general  indifference  that 
prevailed  with  regard  to  all  that  happened  in  Europe, 
and  to  the  strong  pacifist  tendencies,  no  interference  in 
the  war  was  to  be  expected  from  America,  unless  unfore- 
seen circumstances  provoked  it.  At  all  events  it  was 
to  be  feared  that  the  inflammability  of  the  Americans' 
feelings  would  once  again  be  under-estimated  in  Ger- 
many, as  it  had  been  already.  It  has  never  been  prop- 


30          MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

erly  understood  in  our  country,  despite  the  fact  that  the 
Manila  and  Venezuela  affairs  might  have  taught  us  a 
lesson  in  this  respect.  The  juxtaposition  in  the  Ameri- 
can people 's  character  of  Pacifism  and  an  impulsive  lust 
of  war  should  have  been  known  to  us,  if  more  sedulous 
attention  had  been  paid  in  Germany  to  American  con- 
ditions and  characteristics.  The  American  judges  affairs 
in  Europe,  partly  from  the  standpoint  of  his  own  private 
sentiment  of  justice,  and  partly  under  the  guidance  of 
merely  emotional  values ;  but  not,  as  was  generally  sup- 
posed in  Germany,  simply  from  a  cold  and  business-like 
point  of  view.  If  this  had  been  reckoned  with  in  Ger- 
many, the  terrible  effect  upon  public  opinion  in  America 
of  the  invasion  of  Belgium  and  of  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania — particularly  in  view  of  the  influence  of  Eng- 
lish propaganda — would  have  been  adequately  valued 
from  the  start. 

On  May  17th,  1915,  in  a  report  addressed  to  the  Im- 
perial Chancellor,  I  wrote  as  follows : 

"It  is  not  a  bit  of  good  glossing  over  things.  Our  best 
plan,  therefore,  is  frankly  to  acknowledge  that  our  prop- 
aganda in  this  country  has,  as  the  result  of  the  Lusitania 
incident,  completely  collapsed.  To  everyone  who  is  fa- 
miliar with  the  American  character  this  could  have  been 
foreseen.  I  therefore  beg  leave  to  point  out  in  time,  that 
another  event  like  the  present  one  would  certainly  mean 
war  with  the  United  States.  Side  by  side  in  the  Ameri- 
can character  there  lie  two  apparently  completely  con- 
tradictory traits.  The  cool,  calculating  man  of  business 
is  not  recognizable  when  he  is  deeply  moved  and  excited 
— that  is  to  say,  when  he  is  actuated  by  what  is  here 
called  'emotion.'  At  such  moments  he  can  be  compared 
only  to  an  hysterical  woman,  to  whom  talking  is  of  no 
avail.  The  only  hope  is  to  gain  time  while  the  attack 


GERMANY  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES     31 

passes  over.  At  present  it  is  impossible  to  foresee  what 
will  be  the  outcome  of  the  Lusitania  incident.  I  can  only 
hope  that  we  shall  survive  it  without  war.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  however,  we  can  only  resume  our  propaganda  when 
the  storm  has  subsided." 

Here  I  should  like  to  intrude  a  few  of  my  own  views 
regarding  the  importance  of  public  opinion  in  the  United 
States. 

In  Europe,  where  people  are  constantly  hearing  about 
the  truly  extraordinary  and  far-reaching  authority  of 
the  American  President — the  London  Times  once  said 
that,  after  the  overthrow  of  the  Eussian  Czar,  the  Pres- 
ident of  the  United  States  was  the  last  remaining  auto- 
crat— it  is  difficult  to  form  a  correct  estimate  of  the  power 
of  public  opinion  in  the  Union.  In  America,  just  as  no 
mayor  can  with  impunity  ignore  the  public  opinion  of 
his  city,  and  no  governor  the  public  opinion  of  his  state, 
so  the  President  of  the  Eepublic,  despite  his  far-reaching 
authority,  cannot  for  long  run  counter  to  the  public  opin- 
ion of  his  country.  The  fact  has  often  been  emphasized 
by  Mr.  Wilson  himself,  among  others,  that  the  American 
President  must  "keep  his  ear  to  the  ground " — that  is 
to  say,  must  pay  strict  attention  to  public  opinion  and 
act  in  harmony  with  it.  For  the  American  statesman, 
whose  highest  ambition  consists  either  in  being  re-elected, 
or  at  least  in  seeing  his  party  returned  to  power,  any 
other*  course  would  amount  to  political  suicide ;  for  any 
attempt  at  swimming  against  the  tide  will  certainly  be 
avenged  at  the  next  elections. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  public  opinion  in  the 
United  States  is  seldom  so  homogeneous  and  unanimous 
a  thing  as,  for  example,  in  England.  Particularly  in 
questions  of  foreign  politics,  public  opinion  in  the  Union, 
stretching,  as  it  does,  over  a  whole  continent,  reacts  in 


32         MY  THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

i 

widely  varying  ways  in  different  localities,  and  to  a  very 
different  degree.  Thns,  in  the  States  bordering  on  the 
Atlantic  coast,  which  are  more  closely  in  touch  with  the 
Old  World,  there  is,  as  a  rule,  a  very  definite  public 
opinion  on  European  questions,  while  the  West  remains 
more  or  less  indifferent.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Gulf 
States  a  very  lively  interest  is  taken  by  the  public  in 
the  Mexican  problem,  and  the  Pacific  States  are  closely 
concerned  with  the  Japanese  question,  matters  which 
arouse  hardly  more  than  academic  interest  in  other  lo- 
calities. This  is  also  reflected  in  the  American  Daily 
Press,  which  does  not  produce  papers  exerting  equal 
influence  over  the  whole  nation,  but  rather,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  customary  geographical  division  of  the 
Union  into  seven  economic  spheres  of  interest — namely, 
New  York,  New  England,  Middle  Atlantic  States,  South- 
ern States,  Middle  West,  Western  and  Pacific  States, 
comprises  seven  different  daily  presses,  each  of  which 
gives  first  place  to  quite  a  different  problem  from  the 
rest.  It  is  true  that  the  New  York  Press  is  certainly 
the  most  important  mirror  of  American  public  opinion 
on  European  questions.  Nevertheless,  this  importance 
should  not  lead  to  the  erroneous  assumption  that  the 
American  Press  and  the  New  York  Press  are  synony- 
mous terms.  The  perusal  of  the  latter  does  not  suffice 
for  the  formation  of  a  reliable  judgment  of  American 
public  opinion,  with  regard  to  certain  questions  which 
concern  the  whole  nation;  rather  it  is  necessary  also  to 
study  the  leading  papers  of  New  England,  the  Middle 
Atlantic  States,  and  particularly  the  West.  The  reports 
of  German  and  English  correspondents  on  feeling  in 
America,  which,  as  so  often  happens,  are  based  purely 
on  the  New  York  Press,  frequently  play  one  false,  if  one 
relies  on  them  for  an  estimate  of  the  public  opinion  of 
the  whole  nation.  The  " Associated  Press,"  therefore, 


.GERMANY  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES  33 

makes  it  a  rule  with  all  questions  of  national  importance, 
not  only  to  reproduce  extracts  from  the  New  York  Press, 
but  also  to  publish  precis  of  the  opinions  of  at  least  fifty 
leading  journals  from  all  parts  of  the  Union. 

The  American  daily  papers  are  more  important  as  a 
medium  for  influencing  public  opinion  than  as  a  mirror 
for  reflecting  it.  The  United  States  is  the  land  of  propa- 
ganda par  excellence!  Every  important  enterprise,  of 
no  matter  what  nature,  has  its  Press  agent ;  the  greatest 
of  all  is  the  propaganda  lasting  for  months,  which  is 
carried  on  before  the  biennial  elections,  and  of  the  mag- 
nitude of  which  it  is  difficult  for  the  average  European 
to  gain  any  conception.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising 
that  the  political  leaders  of  the  country  make  very  wide 
use  of  the  Press  in  important  questions  of  foreign  poli- 
tics, to  influence  public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  Govern- 
ment  policy.  Not  only  the  great  news  agencies,  but  also 
all  leading  newspapers  of  the  Union  maintain  their  per- 
manent special  correspondents  in  Washington,  and  these 
are  received  almost  daily  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  and 
as  a  rule  once  a  week  by  the  President.  The  informa- 
tion that  they  receive  at  these  interviews  they  communi- 
cate to  their  papers  in  the  greatest  detail,  without  nam- 
ing the  high  officials  from  whom  it  has  emanated,  and 
in  this  way  they  naturally  act  as  megaphones  through 
which  the  views  of  the  Government  are  spread  through- 
out the  whole  country.  In  foreign  questions  it  was  often 
striking  how  newspapers  would  hold  back  their  com- 
ments until  they  had  received  in  this  way  a  mot  d'ordre 
from  Washington. 

Of  course  this  possibility  for  the  Government  to  create 
opinion  on  concrete  questions  only  applies  so  long  as  a 
firm  public  opinion  has  not  already  set  in.  As  soon  as 
the  process  of  "crystallization,"  as  it  is  called,  is  com- 
plete, there  is  nothing  left  for  the  Government  but  to 


34          MY   THREE   YEAES   IN  AMERICA 


the  preponderating  public  opinion.  Even  a  man 
like  Mr.  Wilson,  who  possesses  an  unusually  high  degree 
of  self-will,  has  always  followed  public  opinion,  for  the 
correct  interpretation  of  which  —  apart  from  his  own  pro- 
verbial instinct  —  he  commands  the  services  of  his  secre- 
tary, Mr.  Tumulty,  and  a  large  staff,  as  well  as  the  organ- 
ization of  the  Democratic  party,  which  spreads  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country.  If,  in  a  few  ex- 
ceptional cases,  the  President  has  set  himself  in  opposi- 
tion to  public  opinion,  we  might  be  sure  that  it  would  not 
be  long  before  he  again  set  his  course  on  theirs. 


CHAPTER  H 

THE  GERMAN  PROPAGANDA  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

WHEN  I  received  the  news  of  the  murder  of  Archduke 
Francis  Ferdinand,  I  was  dining  with  the  Spanish  Am- 
bassador at  the  Metropolitan  Club  in  Washington.  Sig- 
nor  Kiano  and  I  were  not  for  a  moment  in  doubt  as  to  the 
very  serious,  peace-menacing  character  of  the  incident, 
but  we  found  little  interest  in  the  matter  among  the 
Americans  in  the  club,  who,  as  always,  regarded  Euro- 
pean affairs  with  indifference.  As  to  the  results  of  the 
murder,  I  received  in  Washington  no  information,  either 
officially  or  through  the  Press. 

I  therefore,  on  the  7th  July,  began  my  usual  summer 
leave,  which  had  been  granted  a  few  weeks  before.  For 
the  last  time  I  crossed  the  ocean  on  one  of  the  proud 
German  liners,  and,  indeed,  on  the  finest  of  our  whole 
merchant  fleet,  the  Vaterland.  For  the  last  time  I  saw, 
on  my  arrival,  the  port  of  Hamburg  and  the  lower  Elbe 
in  all  their  glory.  Germans  who  live  at  home  can  hardly 
imagine  with  what  love  and  what  pride  we  foreign  am- 
bassadors and  exiled  Germans  regarded  the  German  ship- 
ping-lines. 

A  few  days  after  I  had  arrived  in  my  home  at  Starn- 
berg  there  began  strong  public  excitement  and  uneasiness 
over  the  political  situation.  However,  of  late  years  so 
many  crises  had  been  successfully  averted  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  that  this  time,  too,  I  hoped  up  to  the  last  minute 
that  a  change  for  the  better  would  set  in.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  responsibility  for  a  war  was  too  great  to  be 

35 


36          MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

borne  by  any  one  man — whoever  he  might  be — who  would 
have  to  make  the  final  decision. 

On  the  wonderful,  still  summer  evening  of  the  1st 
August,  we  heard  across  the  Starnberger  Lake,  in  all 
the  surrounding  villages,  the  muffled  beat  of  drums  an- 
nouncing mobilization.  The  dark  forebodings  with  which 
the  sound  of  the  drums  filled  me  have  fixed  that  hour 
indelibly  in  my  memory. 

The  following  day  was  devoted  to  preparations  for  the 
journey  to  Berlin,  where  I  had  to  receive  instructions 
before  returning  with  all  possible  speed  to  Washington. 
The  journey  from  Munich  to  Berlin,  which  could  only  be 
made  in  military  trains,  occupied  forty-eight  hours. 

In  the  Wilhelmstrasse  I  had  interviews  with  the  au- 
thorities, the  substance  of  which  was  instructions  to  en- 
lighten the  Government  and  people  of  the  United  States 
on  the  German  standpoint.  In  doing  so  I  was  to  avoid 
any  appearance  of  aggression  towards  England,  because 
an  understanding  with  Great  Britain  had  to  be  concluded 
as  soon  as  possible.  The  Berlin  view  on  the  question 
of  guilt  was  even  then  very  much  the  same  as  has  been 
set  down  in  the  memorandum  of  the  commission  of  four 
of  the  27th  May,  1919,  at  Versailles,  namely,  that  Russia 
was  the  originator  of  the  war. 

Further,  I  was  informed  at  the  Foreign  Office,  that  in 
addition  to  some  other  additions  to  the  staif  of  the  Wash- 
ington Embassy,  the  former  Secretary  of  State  of  the 
Colonial  Office,  Dr.  Dernburg,  and  Privy  Councillor  Al- 
bert, of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior,  were  to  accompany 
me;  the  former  as  representative  of  the  German  Red 
Cross,  the  latter  as  agent  of  the  "Central  Purchasing 
Company."  Dr.  Dernburg 's  chief  task,  however,  was  to 
raise  a  loan  in  the  United  States,  the  proceeds  of  which 
were  to  pay  for  Herr  Albert's  purchases  for  the  afore- 
said company.  For  this  purpose  the  Imperial  Treasury 


THE   GERMAN  PROPAGANDA  37 

supplied  us  with  Treasury  notes,  which  could  only  be 
made  negotiable  by  my  signature.  This  gave  rise  later 
to  the  legend  that  Dr.  Dernburg  was  armed  with  millions 
for  propaganda  purposes. 

Our  journey  was  wearisome  but  passed  off  without  in- 
cident. In  forty-eight  hours  we  reached  Eotterdam, 
where  we  boarded  the  Dutch  steamer  No  or  dam.  As  we 
went  aboard  we  were  all  in  high  spirits,  for  we  had  seen 
everywhere  in  Germany  a  wonderful,  self -sacrificing  and 
noble  enthusiasm.  On  the  steamer,  however,  which  inci- 
dentally was  badly  overloaded,  the  picture  changed.  We 
suddenly  found  ourselves  surrounded  by  hostile  feeling, 
and  among  our  fellow-passengers  there  were  only  a  few 
friendly  to  the  German  cause.  The  bitter  daily  struggle 
toward  which  we  were  travelling  was  to  begin  on  the 
ship.  We  plunged  straight  into  it,  and  tried  as  far  as 
possible  to  influence  our  fellow  passengers. 

At  Dover  the  ship  was  inspected  by  a  British  officer; 
the  inspection,  however,  passed  off  without  any  incon- 
venience to  us,  as  in  those  first  days  of  the  war  the  regula- 
tions of  international  law  were  still  to  some  extent  re- 
spected. We  had  already  made  all  preparations  to  throw 
the  Treasury  notes  overboard,  in  case  we  were  searched. 
As  a  curiosity  I  mention  a  comic  interlude  that  occurred 
after  we  had  left  Dover  Harbor.  A  friendly  German- 
American  from  a  Western  State,  who  did  not  know  who 
I  was,  but  had  recognized  me  as  a  German,  accosted  me 
with  the  remark:  "Take  care  that  you  don't  expose  your- 
self to  annoyance ;  the  people  on  board  think  you  are  the 
German  Ambassador  in  Washington. "  The  excellent 
man  was  overcome  with  amazement  when  I  admitted  my 
identity.  We  had  not  had  our  names  entered  on  the 
passengers'  list,  but  apart  from  this  made  no  secret  of 
our  journey,  as  it  was  already  known  in  Rotterdam. 

After  an  eleven  days'  voyage,  we  landed  in  New  York 


38 

on  the  23rd  Angnst.  Our  arrival  was  a  relief,  as  during 
the  journey  we  had  been  overwhelmed  exclusively  with 
enemy  wireless  reports  of  French  victories.  Every  day 
we  had  received  news  of  the  annihilation  of  a  fresh  Ger- 
man Army  Corps.  In  comparison  with  this  mental  tor- 
ture, the  cross-fire  of  questions  from  countless  American 
Pressmen,  not  altogether  friendly  towards  Germany,  was 
comparatively  easy  to  bear. 

As  is  known,  American  public  opinion  at  that  time  had 
been  given  a  one-sided  view  of  the  causes  and  course  of 
the  war,  for  England,  who,  immediately  after  the  declar- 
ation of  war,  had  cut  our  Transatlantic  cable,  held  the 
whole  of  the  Transatlantic  news  apparatus  in  her  hands. 
Apart  from  this,  however,  our  enemies  found  from  the 
beginning  very  important  Allies  in  a  number  of  leading 
American  newspapers,  which,  in  their  daily  issue  of  from 
thiee  to  six  editions,  did  all  they  could  to  spread  anti- 
German  feeling.  In  New  York  the  bitterest  attacks  on 
Germany  were  made  by  the  Herald  and  the  Evening 
Telegram,  which  were  in  close  touch  with  France,  as  well 
as  the  Tribune  and  Times,  which  followed  in  England's 
wake;  somewhat  more  moderate  were  the  Sun  and  the 
Globe;  the  only  neutrals  were  the  Evening  Post  and  the 
American.  Outside  New  York  the  Press  raged  against 
us,  particularly  in  New  England  and  the  Middle- Atlantic 
States.  In  the  South  and  West  we  were  also  baited  by 
the  Press,  but  with  considerably  less  intensity.  The  only 
papers  which  could  be  called  neutral  were  those  of  the 
Hearst  Press,  which  took  up  an  outspoken  National- 
American  standpoint,  and,  in  addition,  the  Chicago  Trib- 
une, the  Washington  Post,  and  a  few  minor  newspapers. 
It  was  already  very  significant  that  papers  like  the  Bos- 
ton Transcript,  the  Brooklyn  Eagle,  the  Baltimore  Sun, 
and  a  few  others  opened  their  letter-boxes  to  anti-Ger- 
man articles,  which,  it  is  true,  they  condemned  with  fair 


THE  GERMAN  PROPAGANDA  39 

regularity  in  their  leading  articles  or  editorial  notes. 
Against  this  campaign,  fed  systematically  and  daily  with 
British  propaganda  information — especially  on  the  sub- 
ject of  German  atrocities  in  Belgium — the  small  number 
of  papers  in  the  German  language,  which,  moreover,  were 
little  heeded  by  public  opinion,  and  at  the  head  of  which 
stood  the  old  New  Yorker  Staatszeitung  and  the  coura- 
geous weekly  Fatherland,  founded  shortly  after  the  out- 
break of  war  by  the  young  German-American,  G.  S. 
Vierick,  could  make  but  little  headway. 

On  my  arrival  in  New  York,  and  during  the  next  few 
weeks,  I  made  an  honest  effort  by  daily  interviews  of 
the  representatives  of  the  leading  daily  newspapers  to 
explain  the  German  standpoint  to  the  American  public. 
I  soon  noticed,  however,  that  these  efforts  were  not  only 
practically  fruitless  but  that  they  were  even  fraught  with 
certain  dangers  for  me.  The  daily  struggle  with  the 
Press  was  threatening  to  undermine  my  official  position 
and  to  compromise  my  relations  with  the  Washington 
Government  so  seriously  that  I  should  not  have  been  in 
a  position  to  carry  through  with  success  the  diplomatic 
negotiations  which  were  likely  to  be  called  for.  I  there- 
fore considered  it  as  my  duty  to  the  German  people  to 
give  up,  as  far  as  I  personally  was  concerned,  all  propa- 
ganda in  favor  of  the  German  cause.  Certainly  I  have 
had  a  good  deal  further  to  do  with  American  journalists 
until  the  final  rupture;  but  I  categorically  refused  to 
grant  interviews  or  to  receive  newspaper  correspondents 
who  were  not  prepared  to  treat  my  statements  purely  as 
confidential,  private  information. 

I  should  like  to  take  this  opportunity  to  remark  that 
the  American  journalist  is  far  better  than  the  reputation 
he  enjoys  in  Europe.  In  spite  of  the  hostile  atmosphere 
which  surrounded  me  in  America  I  have  never  had  to 
complain  of  an  indiscretion.  True,  many  minor  New 


40         MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

York  reporters  whom  I  did  not  receive  invented  state- 
ments which  I  had  never  made;  but  such  experiences 
are  common  to  all  politicians  in  America.  Moreover,  the 
results  of  these  journalistic  tricks  were  almost  always 
local  and  were  easily  contradicted.  In  Washington  such 
things  never  occurred.  The  journalists  there  were  quite 
extraordinarily  capable  and  trustworthy  men,  who  al- 
ways behaved  like  *  *  gentlemen. ' '  My  relations  with  them 
remained  very  friendly  to  the  last.  In  so  far  as  I  was 
not  forced  to  keep  silence  for  political  reasons  I  have 
always  told  them  the  real  truth.  Of  course,  I  was  as 
little  capable  as  the  American  journalists  of  foreseeing 
that  the  policy  I  was  representing  was  doomed  to  ulti- 
mate failure. 

Just  at  the  time  when  I  gave  up  personal  propaganda 
in  order  to  devote  myself  to  my  political  and  diplomatic 
activities  in  Washington,  the  financial  mission  of  Sec- 
retary of  State  Dr.  Dernburg  had  failed.  President  Wil- 
son had  stated  clearly  that  it  would  be  an  unneutral  act 
for  loans  to  be  raised  in  the  Union  by  the  combatant 
States.  Our  friends  in  high  financial  circles  in  New  York 
regarded  this  decision  as  favorable  to  Germany,  for  they 
foresaw — what  actually  happened — that  for  every  million 
received  by  us,  our  enemies  would  raise  a  hundred  mil- 
lions. As  a  result  of  this  decision  of  the  President, 
Privy  Councillor  Albert  had  to  finance  his  purchases  as 
far  as  possible  privately,  while  Dr.  Dernburg,  whose 
time  was  not  fully  occupied  by  his  duties  as  delegate  of 
the  Red  Cross,  which  had  meanwhile  been  organized  by 
Geheim  Oberregierungrat  Meyer  Gerhardt  and  Rittmeis- 
ter  Hecker,  would  have  left  America  if  there  had  re- 
mained any  possibility  of  doing  so.  There  was  not,  how- 
ever, as  the  English  inspected  all  neutral  ships  shortly 
after  they  left  the  American  ports  and — in  flagrant  con- 
travention of  international  law,  which  only  allows  the 


THE   GERMAN   PROPAGANDA  41 

arrest  of  persons  who  are  already  enrolled  in  the  fighting 
forces — summarily  arrested  and  interned  every  German 
capable  of  bearing  arms.  As  Dr.  Dernburg  was  thus  an 
unwilling  prisoner  in  New  York  he  began  to  write  articles 
on  the  world-war  for  the  daily  Press.  He  had  a  gift  for 
explaining  the  causes  of  the  war  in  a  quiet,  interesting 
manner,  and  particularly  for  setting  out  the  German 
standpoint  in  a  conciliatory  form.  His  propaganda  work 
therefore  met  with  extraordinary  success.  The  editors 
of  newspapers  and  periodicals  pressed  him  to  contribute 
to  their  columns,  and  the  whole  New  York  Press  readily 
printed  all  the  articles  he  sent  in  to  contradict  the  state- 
ments of  the  anti-Germans. 

Out  of  this  activity  developed,  in  co-operation  with  the 
Foreign  Office,  Dr.  Dernburg 's  New  York  Press  Bureau, 
a  solution  of  the  propaganda  question  which  was  exceed- 
ingly welcome  to  me.  As  a  private  person  Dr.  Dernburg 
could  say  and  write  much  that  could  not  be  said  officially 
and  therefore  could  not  come  from  me.  Consequently 
I  took  it  for  granted  that — in  spite  of  certain  suggestions 
to  the  contrary — Dr.  Dernburg  would  not  be  attached 
to  the  Embassy,  which  would  only  hamper  his  work,  and 
also  that  the  Press  Bureau  would  retain  its  independent 
and  unofficial  character.  I  may  take  it  as  a  well-known 
fact  that  Washington  is  the  political,  and  New  York  the 
economic,  capital  of  the  United  States,  which  has  always 
resulted  in  a  certain  geographical  division  of  the  corre- 
sponding diplomatic  duties.  It  naturally  had  its  disad- 
vantages that  there  should  be,  apart  from  the  Consulate- 
General,  four  other  independent  German  establishments 
in  New  York,  namely,  the  offices  of  Dr.  Dernburg,  Privy 
Councillor  Albert,  the  military  attache  Captain  von 
Papen  and  the  naval  attache  Commander  Boy-Ed.  In 
order  to  keep,  to  some  extent,  in  touch  with  these  gen- 
tlemen, I  occasionally  travelled  to  New  York  and  inter- 


42         MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

viewed  them  together  in  the  Ritz-Carlton  Hotel,  where 
I  usually  stayed  and  in  which  Dr.  Dernburg  lived;  for 
their  offices,  scattered  as  they  were  over  the  lower  town, 
and  which,  moreover,  I  never  entered,  were  unsuitable 
for  the  purpose.  Our  mutual  personal  relations  were 
always  of  the  best.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  naturally 
difficult  to  make  any  headway  with  our  official  business, 
since  each  received  independent  instructions  from  Berlin. 
This  was  least  the  case  with  Dr.  Dernburg,  because  his 
responsible  authority  as  far  as  propaganda  was  con- 
cerned was  partly  the  Foreign  Office  itself  and  partly 
the  semi-official  "Central  Office  for  Foreign  Service. " 
The  other  three  gentlemen,  however,  were  all  responsible 
to  home  departments  other  than  mine.  Captain  von 
Papen  and  Commander  Boy-Ed  frequently  held  back 
from  me  the  instructions  they  had  received  from  Berlin 
in  order  not  to  embarrass  the  Embassy  by  passing  on 
military  or  naval  information.  Financially,  too,  the  four 
officials  were  completely  independent  and  had  their  own 
banking  accounts,  for  which  they  had  to  account  individ- 
ually to  their  respective  departments  at  home.  Only 
Privy  Councillor  Albert  had,  for  the  purchase  on  a  large 
scale  of  raw  material,  definite  funds  which  were  in  any 
event  under  my  control.  Concerning  the  activities  of 
these  four  gentlemen,  countless  legends  have  been  spread 
in  America  and  in  part  have  found  their  way  to  Germany. 
In  spite  of  all  the  reproaches  levelled  against  them,  and 
indirectly  against  myself,  with  regard  to  propaganda — 
I  shall  speak  of  the  so-called  conspiracies  in  Chapter  V. 
— nothing  has  reached  my  ears  of  which  these  gentlemen 
need  in  any  way  be  ashamed.  Individual  mistakes  we 
have,  of  course,  all  made;  in  view  of  the  ferocity  and 
protraction  of  the  struggle  they  were  inevitable.  But 
in  general  the  German  propaganda  in  America  in  no  way 
deserves  the  abuse  with  which  it  has  been  covered,  in 


THE   GERMAN   PROPAGANDA  43 

part,  too,  at  home.  If  it  had  really  been  so  clumsy  or 
ineffective  as  the  enemy  Press  afterwards  claimed,  the 
Entente  and  their  American  partisans  would  not  have 
set  in  motion  such  gigantic  machinery  to  combat  it.  One 
need  only  read  G.  Lechartier's  book,  "Intrigues  et  Dip- 
lomatics a  Washington,"  to  see  what  importance  was 
attached  to  our  propaganda  by  the  enemy.  In  spite  of 
all  the  bitterness  which  the  author  infuses  into  his  ficti- 
tious narration,  admiration  for  the  German  activity  in 
the  United  States  shines  through  the  whole  book.  Fur- 
ther, at  the  end  of  1918  a  Commission  of  the  Senate  ap- 
pointed to  investigate  German  propaganda,  as  a  result 
of  the  publication  of  protocols  on  this  subject,  repeatedly 
stated  that  its  work  had  in  no  way  been  in  vain,  but 
rather  its  after  effects  had  made  themselves  strongly  felt 
"like  poison  gas"  long  after  America's  entry  into  the 
war.  One  may  well  venture  to  say  that,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  serious  crisis  caused  by  the  submarine  war,  it 
would  probably  in  time  have  succeeded  in  completely 
neutralizing  the  anti-German  campaign. 

As  regards  our  justification  for  openly  championing 
the  German  cause  before  the  people  of  the  United  States 
by  written  and  spoken  word,  this  is  self-evident  in  a  coun- 
try which  recognizes  the  principles  of  freedom  of  the 
Press  and  free  speech.  Apart  from  this,  however,  the 
American  Government  have  themselves  provided  a 
precedent  in  this  connection  during  the  civil  war,  when 
President  Lincoln  in  1863  sent  to  England  the  famous 
preacher,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  whose  sympathies  were 
strongly  on  the  side  of  the  Federals.  Through  his 
speeches,  afterwards  published  as  "Patriotic  Ad- 
dresses," he  did  much  towards  swaying  public  opinion 
in  favor  of  the  Northern  States.  In  this  war,  too,  Amer- 
ica, after  abandoning  her  neutrality,  has  carried  out 
vigorous  propaganda  in  neutral  countries,  as  is  shown 


44          MY   THEEE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

by  the  mission  of  the  well-known  New  York  supporter 
of  woman  suffrage,  Mrs.  Norman  Whitehouse,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  official  Press  Bureau  and  with  the  special 
approval  of  Secretary  of  State  Lansing.  Moreover  our 
justification  has  been  expressly  upheld  by  a  statement  of 
Commissioner  Bruce  Bielaski  of  the  American  Law 
Department,  who  appeared  as  chief  witness  against  us 
before  the  above  mentioned  Commission  of  Inquiry.  He 
declared  that  there  was  no  law  in  the  United  States 
which,  before  her  entry  into  the  war,  rendered  illegal 
German  or  any  other  foreign  propaganda.  Why  all  this 
noise  then? — it  is  reasonable  to  ask.  Why,  then,  has  the 
suggestion  persisted  at  home  and  abroad,  almost  from 
the  appearance  of  Dr.  Dernburg  until  the  present  day, 
that  we  had,  with  our  propaganda  campaign,  made  our- 
selves guilty  of  treachery  to  the  United  States? 

From  the  moral  point  of  view,  too,  no  exception  can 
be  taken  to  the  German  propaganda.  The  United  States 
was  neutral  and  wished  to  remain  so.  The  German  pro- 
paganda was  working  for  the  same  end.  I  have  never 
heard  of  a  single  case  of  bribery  by  our  representatives. 
If  money  was  spent  on  our  side,  it  was  purely  for  the 
purpose  of  spreading  articles  and  pamphlets  pleading 
United  States  neutrality.  Applications  were  frequently 
made  to  us  by  writers  and  editors  who  from  inner  con- 
viction were  ready  to  write  and  circulate  articles  of  this 
kind,  but  were  not  financially  in  a  position  to  do  so.  The 
leaders  of  German  propaganda  would  surely  have  been 
neglectful  of  their  duty  if  in  such  cases  they  had  not 
provided  the  necessary  funds.  All  Governments  in  the 
world  have  always  proceeded  in  a  similar  way,  and  in 
particular-  that  of  the  United  States  since  their  entry 
into  the  war,  as  is  shown  by  the  case  of  the  Freie  Zeitung 
of  Bern — therefore  equally  in  a  neutral  country.  These 
facts  must  throw  a  strange  light  on  the  inquiry  of  the 


THE   GEEMAN   PKOPAGANDA  45 

American  Senate  into  German  propaganda,  delayed  as 
it  was  until  last  winter  and  carried  through  with  such 
elaborate  machinery.  It  is  obvious  that  beneath  it  all 
there  lay — what  irony ! — a  purely  propagandist  purpose, 
namely,  that  of  humiliating  Germany  in  the  person  of 
her  late  official  representative  accredited  to  the  United 
States,  and  to  make  her  appear  contemptible  in  the  eyes 
of  the  uncritical  public! 

Whereas  in  the  first  months  of  the  war  no  one  in  Amer- 
ica had  thought  of  connecting  "German  Propaganda " 
with  anything  shocking,  our  opponents  afterwards  suc- 
ceeded in  disseminating  the  idea  that  a  few  offences 
against  the  law  committed  by  Imperial  and  American 
Germans  represented  an  important,  even  the  most  im- 
portant, part  of  the  German  propaganda  work.  So  it 
was  brought  about  that  even  in  the  time  before  Amer- 
ica's entry  into  the  war,  everyone  who  openly  stood  up 
for  Germany's  cause  was  stamped  by  the  expression 
"German  Propagandist"  as  a  person  of  doubtful  integ- 
rity. The  gradual  official  perpetuation  of  this  admittedly 
misleading  identification  of  our  absolutely  unexception- 
able propaganda  with  a  few  regrettable  offences  against 
the  American  penal  code — this  and  no  other  was  the 
object  of  that  inquiry  by  the  Senate.  The  prejudicial 
headlines  under  which  the  published  articles  were 
printed,  such  as  "Brewery  and  Brandy  Interests"  and 
"German-Bolshevist  Propaganda,"  themselves  sufficed 
to  indicate  that  our  propaganda  was  to  be  crucified  be- 
tween two  "malefactors";  for  to  the  average  American 
citizen  there  is  nothing  more  horrifying  than  the  distil- 
lery on  the  one  hand  and  Bolshevism  on  the  other.  In 
this  connection  I  must  not  omit  to  mention  that  the  great 
majority  of  the  documents  laid  before  the  Commission 
had  been  secured  by  means  of  bribery  or  theft.  It  is  also 
worth  while  to  remind  the  reader  of  the  significant  words 


46         MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

of  Senator  Reed,  a  member  of  the  Commission,  who  said 
at  one  point  in  the  examination:  "I  am  interested  in 
trying  to  distil  some  truth  from  a  mass  of  statements 
which  are  so  manifestly  unfair  and  distorted  that  it  is 
hard  to  characterize  them  in  parliamentary  language." 

As  for  the  fantastic  figures  with  which  the  Americans 
have  undertaken  to  estimate  the  cost  of  our  propaganda, 
they  rest — in  so  far  as  they  are  not  simply  the  fruit  of 
a  malicious  imagination — on  the,  to  say  the  least  of  it, 
superficial  hypothesis  that  all  the  money  paid  out  by 
the  different  German  offices  from  the  outbreak  of  war 
until  the  breaking  off  of  diplomatic  relations  between 
Germany  and  America,  the  amount  of  which  has  been 
arrived  at  on  the  strength  of  a  minute  scrutiny  of  the 
books  of  all  the  banks  with  which  these  offices  have  done 
business,  were  used  for  purposes  of  propaganda.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  of  course,  far  the  greater  part  of  this 
outlay  went  to  finance  the  very  extensive  purchases  of 
Privy  Councillor  Albert  as  well  as  certain  business  trans- 
actions concluded  by  Captain  von  Papen,  which  will  be 
discussed  later.  In  comparison  with  this  the  sum  we  de- 
voted to  propaganda  work  was  quite  small  The  Press 
Bureau  was  frequently  very  appreciably  hampered  by 
the  fact  that  even  for  quite  minor  expenditure  outside 
the  fixed  budget,  previous  sanction  had  to  be  obtained 
from  Berlin.  Consequently  much  useful  work  would  have 
had  to  remain  undone  if,  particularly  in  the  first  months 
of  the  war,  self-sacrificing  German-Americans  to  whom 
it  was  only  of  the  slightest  interest  that  the  German  point 
of  view  should  be  accurately  and  emphatically  explained, 
had  not  placed  small  sums  at  the  disposal  of  the  leaders 
of  our  propaganda.  In  the  two  and  a  half  years  between 
the  outbreak  of  war  and  the  rupture  between  Germany 
and  America  the  sums  paid  out  from  official  funds  for 
propaganda  work  in  the  Union — including  minor  contri- 


THE   GERMAN   PROPAGANDA  47 

butions  for  other  countries,  as,  for  example,  the  pictures 
distributed  from  New  York  over  South  America  and 
Eastern  Asia — do  not,  all  told,  exceed  a  million  dollars. 
That  is  surely  only  a  small  fraction  of  what  England 
and  France  have  expended  during  the  war  in  order,  in 
spite  of  very  thorough  preparation  in  peace  time,  to 
win  over  .American  public  opinion  to  their  cause.  It  is 
actually  only  a  sixth  of  what,  according  to  the  Chicago 
Tribune  on  the  1st  November,  1919,  the  official  American 
Press  Bureau  of  Mr.  George  Creel  has  spent  in  order 
to  "cement  enthusiasm  for  the  war"  during  the  eighteen 
months  between  America's  entry  into  the  war  and  the 
conclusion  of  the  Armistice.  The  thirty-five  to  fifty  mil- 
lion dollars  which,  according  to  the  statements  of  our 
enemies,  were  swallowed  up  by  German  propaganda  in 
the  United  States  belong,  therefore,  to  the  realms  of 
fable. 

In  this  connection  I  must  mention  yet  another,  far 
more  malicious  legend,  namely,  the  slander  widely  spread 
in  America  last  year,  that  the  funds  collected  in  America 
for  the  German  Red  Cross  were  used  to  finance  German 
propaganda.  It  is  a  fact  that  every  dollar  that  went  to 
the  German  Red  Cross  Delegation  in  New  York  was  re- 
mitted to  the  home  organization  for  which  it  was  in- 
tended. Of  course  these  funds  were  in  the  first  place 
paid  into  the  various  New  York  banking  accounts  from 
which  Dr.  Dernburg  drew  the  funds  for  the  Press  Bu- 
reau. But,  as  Captain  Hecker  has  most  definitely  stated, 
their  equivalent  was  remitted  to  Germany  through  the 
bank,  regardless  of  the  changes  in  the  exchange. 

Dr.  Dernburg,  in  organizing  the  Press  Bureau,  availed 
himself  of  the  assistance  he  found  in  New  York.  The 
suggestion,  widely  current  in  America  and  repeated  by 
a  member  of  the  American  Secret  Service  before  the 
Senatorial  inquiry,  that  this  Press  Bureau  had  formed, 


48         MY   THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

as  it  were,  a  part  of  the  German  mobilization,  and  that, 
therefore,  the  most  skilled  propaganda  experts  from 
Europe  and  the  Far  East  had  been  gathered  together 
in  New  York  in  order  that,  after  a  preliminary  run  there, 
they  might  be  let  loose  on  the  American  world,  is  a  ridi- 
culous invention.  Just  as  Dr.  Dernburg  himself  became 
a  propagandist  without  any  premeditation,  so  it  was 
also  the  case  with  his  colleagues.  At  first  his  only  as- 
sistants were  the  New  York  Press  Agent  of  the  Ham- 
burg-Amerika  line,  Herr  M.  B.  Claussen,  and  after  the 
entry  of  Japan  into  the  war  a  Government  official  from 
that  country  who  was  unable  to  continue  his  journey  to 
Germany,  because  the  passport  across  the  Atlantic 
granted  him  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  State 
Department  was  rejected  by  the  British  authorities. 
This  official,  Dr.  Alexander  Fuehr,  the  interpreter  of 
the  Consulate-General  in  Yokohama,  who  had  great  ex- 
perience in  Press  matters  and  possessed  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  American  affairs,  assisted  by  quite  a  small 
staff  of  assistants  engaged  in  New  York,  issued  the  daily 
bulletins  of  the  "German  Information  Service,"  which 
appeared  for  a  year  and  consisted  of  translations  of 
the  substance  of  the  German  newspapers,  comments  on 
daily  events  and  occasional  interviews  with  people  who 
had  returned  from  Europe.  It  was  Herr  Claussens's 
duty  to  circulate  the  bulletins,  the  arrival  of  which  was 
in  no  way  kept  secret,  among  the  American  Press,  and 
to  see  to  it  that  they  should  be  reproduced  as  fully  as 
possible,  which  was  done,  especially  in  the  provincial 
Press. 

Later,  when  the  propaganda  movement  had  developed 
to  the  extent  of  publishing  and  circulating  leaflets, 
brochures  and  longer  pamphlets,  Dr.  Dernburg  decided 
to  employ  in  the  Press  Bureau  a  well-known  American 
publicist  in  the  person  of  Mr.  William  Bayard  Hale,  who 


THE   GERMAN   PROPAGANDA  49 

had  already  done  good  work,  by  speaking  and  writing, 
towards  an  unbiassed  appreciation  of  the  German  point 
of  view,  and  he  was  assisted  by  two  younger  New  York 
journalists.  Later,  when  the  bureau  took  up  war-pic- 
ture and  war-film  propaganda,  these  were  joined  by  two 
more  young  German  Government  officials,  Dr.  Mechlen- 
burg  and  Herr  Plage,  who  also  were  held  up  in  America 
on  their  way  from  Japan.  More  than  a  dozen  persons, 
including  messengers,  have  never  been  employed  by  the 
Press  Bureau  at  a  time.  Of  the  thirty-one  trained 
propagandists  imported  from  Germany  who,  according 
to  Captain  Lester's  evidence  before  the  Senatorial  Cora- 
mission,  were  supposed  to  have  worked  in  the  Press 
Bureau,  in  so  far  as  their  names  were  given  in  the  proto- 
cols of  the  inquiry,  we  are  assured  by  Herr  Fuehr  that 
not  one  was  employed  there! 

In  addition  to  his  direction  of  the  Press  Bureau  Dr. 
Dernburg,  who  continued  with  inexhaustible  energy  to 
write  articles  for  the  periodicals  and  instructive  letters 
for  the  daily  Press,  was  responsible  for  keeping  in  touch 
with  the  directors  of  the  American  Press.  He  also 
availed  himself  of  invitations  to  speak  in  American  and 
German  circles,  and  sometimes  in  other  places  than  New 
York.  As  far  as  I  know  he  never  founded  any  societies 
for  propaganda  purposes.  On  the  other  hand,  when  such 
societies  which  had  arisen  without  his  influence  turned 
to  him,  he  of  course  supported  them  by  word  and 
deed. 

For  all  questions  of  propaganda  Dr.  Dernburg  had  the 
assistance  of  a  small  committee  nominated  by  himself 
and  consisting,  in  addition  to  Herren  Albert,  Meyer 
Gerhardt  and  Fuehr,  of  a  few  American  journalists  and 
business  men.  It  was  his  custom  to  confer  with  this 
committee  once  or  twice  a  month,  when  the  general  situa- 
tion, the  prevailing  fluctuations  of  public  opinion  and 


50         MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

the  probable  influence  of  the  propaganda  material  about 
to  be  published,  were  discussed  in  detail. 

With  this  entirely  improvised  and,  as  will  be  seen, 
very  modest  machinery,  Dr.  Dernburg  began  his  cam- 
paign. The  enemy  statement  that  the  German  propa- 
ganda in  the  United  States  had  been  actually  organized 
many  years  before  the  war,  so  that  in  1914  we  might 
have  ready  at  our  disposal  an  organization  with  branches 
in  every  part  of  the  country,  is  unfortunately  devoid  of 
any  foundation.  It  is  a  regrettable  fact  that,  in  spite 
of  my  repeated  warnings  to  the  authorities,  nothing  was 
ever  done  on  the  German  side  before  the  war.  It  is 
well  known  that  at  that  time  the  power  of  public  opinion 
in  democratic  countries  was  very  little  understood  in 
Germany.  It  was  thought  at  home — which  is  typical 
of  the  objective,  matter-of-fact  German  national  charac- 
ter— that  it  was  much  more  important  that  the  right 
should  be  done  than  that  it  should  be  recognized  as  right 
by  the  public.  Added  to  this  was  the  under-estimation 
of  the  influence  of  the  United  States  on  the  development 
of  world  politics. 

Before  the  war  no  one  in  Germany  had  thought  it  pos- 
sible that  the  Union  would  have  to  be  reckoned  with 
as  a  factor,  much  less  a  decisive  factor,  in  a  European 
war.  This  was  a  mistake,  the  effect  of  which  unfortu- 
nately was  felt  until  well  into  1917 — the  result  was  that 
there  was  never  enough  money  available  to  keep  in  touch 
and  co-operate  with  the  American  Press.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  I  had,  in  the  course  of  my  activities  in  Washing- 
ton, personally  entered  into  certain  social  relations  with 
the  proprietors  of  a  few  great  American  newspapers. 
But  from  Berlin  no  advances  were  made.  Even  with 
the  German-American  papers  there  was  no  organized 
connection,  and  they  themselves  did  not  work  together 
in  any  way.  It  is  true  that  for  years  there  had  been 


THE   GEEMAN   PBOPAGANDA  51 

a  business  connection  between  the  greatest  American 
news-agency,  the  Associated  Press,  and  the  Wolff  Tele- 
graphic Bureau ;  as,  however,  the  agency  was  not  served 
direct  with  Berlin  Wolff-telegrams,  but  by  its  own  repre- 
sentatives there,  this  did  not  amount  to  much.  England, 
on  the  other  hand — quite  apart  from  the  close  relation- 
ship resulting  from  a  common  language — had  for  years 
maintained  and  systematically  cultivated  the  closest 
contact  with  the  American  Press.  It  followed,  then, 
that  on  the  outbreak  of  war  the  English  influence  on  the 
American  daily  Press  was  enormous.  It  did  not  rest  as 
exclusively  as  has  been  assumed  in  Germany  on  direct 
proprietary  rights.  I  do  not  think  that,  with  the  exception 
of  a  single  newspaper  in  one  of  the  smaller  cities  any 
great  American  paper  was  directly  bought  by  England. 
Here  and  there  considerable  blocks  of  American  news- 
paper shares  may  have  been  in  English  hands  and  influ- 
enced the  tendency  of  certain  papers.  If,  however,  it  is 
true — as  was  credibly  stated  in  Irish- American  quarters 
during  the  first  year  of  the  war — that  Lord  Northcliffe 
boasted  a  year  or  two  before  the  war  of  " controlling" 
seventeen  American  papers,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
this  influence  of  the  English  press-magnates  was  based  on 
hard  cash.  Bather  is  it  the  case  that  certain  newspapers 
received  their  otherwise  very  costly  private  news-service 
from  England  on  very  advantageous  terms.  To  others, 
English  writers  of  leading  articles  are  said  to  have  been 
attached,  without  cost  to  the  newspaper — a  scheme  of 
which  I  have  often  heard  in  America,  but  which  is  diffi- 
cult to  prove,  as  all  American  newspapers  maintain  the 
strictest  secrecy  as  to  the  origin  of  their  leading  articles. 
It  is,  however,  common  knowledge  that  with  regard  to 
European  affairs  the  American  news  service  was  swayed 
by  this  entirely  English  organization.  Until  the  out- 
break of  the  war  the  American  news  agencies  drew  ex- 


52         MY   THEEE  YEARS  IN  AMEEICA 

clusively  from  English  sources.  Moreover,  those  news- 
papers which  in  the  United  States  play  a  very  important 
part,  inasmuch  as  they  are  the  fount  of  most  of  the  new 
ideas  by  which  the  tone  of  the  Press  in  influenced,  were 
in  a  very  considerable  degree  served  from  England.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  wide  field  of  cinematographic  pro- 
duction was  strongly  influenced  by  the  French  film.  In 
this  way  our  enemies  in  the  United  States  had,  at  the 
outbreak  of  war,  a  boundless  and  excellently  prepared 
field  for  the  propagation  of  their  news,  and  the  represen- 
tation of  their  point  of  view,  but  more  particularly  for 
their  attack  on  the  German  cause.  In  spite  of  this, 
however,  they  immediately  inundated  the  Union  with 
propagandist  literature,  particularly  through  the  agents 
of  the  English  shipping  lines,  who  were  scattered  all 
over  the  country,  and  the  well-known  author  and  poli- 
tician, Sir  Gilbert  Parker,  sent  from  London  tons  of  this 
matter  to  well-known  American  business  men,  profes- 
sors and  politicians. 

On  our  side,  it  is  true,  and  I  should  like  to  emphasize 
this  to  their  credit,  that  on  the  outbreak  of  war  the 
German- American  newspapers  took  up  our  cause  un- 
hesitatingly and  as  one  man.  Further,  they  have,  until 
America's  entry  into  the  war,  honestly  striven  to  win 
full  justice  for  the  American  point  of  view,  and  to  com- 
bat the  unneutral  leanings  of  the  majority  of  the  Ameri- 
cans and  the  slanderous  attacks  of  our  enemies.  As, 
however,  they  are  not  accessible  to  the  general  public, 
who  do  not  know  German,  and  in  particular  scarcely 
ever  come  into  the  hands  of  the  authoritative  American 
political  circles,  their  support  remained  more  or  less 
academic.  Very  valuable  services  were  rendered  to  the 
German  cause  by  the  already-mentioned  weekly  paper 
Fatherland,  which  was  printed  in  English ;  in  view,  how- 
ever, of  its  reputation  as  a  partisan  journal,  it  naturally 


THE   GERMAN   PROPAGANDA  53 

could  not  exert  so  deep  an  influence  as  the  local  daily 
papers,  which  carried  on  the  English  propaganda  with- 
out allowing  it  to  become  too  conspicuous.  For  tele- 
graphic communication  from  Germany  to  America  we 
had  to  rely  solely  on  the  two  German  wireless  stations 
at  Sayville  and  Tuckerton,  erected  shortly  before  the 
outbreak  of  war,  and  we  soon  succeeded,  subject  to 
American  censorship,  in  getting  a  regular  Press-service, 
which  was  spread,  not  only  over  the  whole  of  the  United 
States,  but  was  also  passed  on  to  South  America  and 
East  Asia.  But  in  the  first  place,  in  spite  of  repeated 
extension  and  strengthening,  these  two  stations  were 
quite  inadequate;  in  the  second  place,  the  Press-service 
never  succeeded  in  adapting  itself  thoroughly  to  Ameri- 
can requirements.  The  same  may  be  said  of  most  of  the 
German  propaganda  literature  which  reached  America 
in  fairly  large  quantities  since  the  third  month  of  the 
war,  partly  in  German  and  partly  in  not  always  irre- 
proachable English.  This,  like  the  Press  telegrams, 
showed  a  complete  lack  of  understanding  of  American 
national  psychology.  The  American  character,  I  should 
like  to  repeat  here,  is  by  no  means  so  dry  and  calculating 
as  the  German  picture  of  an  American  business  man 
usually  represents.  The  outstanding  characteristic  of 
the  average  American  is  rather  a  great,  even  though 
superficial,  sentimentality.  There  is  no  news  for  which 
a  way  cannot  be  guaranteed  through  the  whole  country, 
if  clothed  in  a  sentimental  form.  Our  enemies  have  ex- 
ploited this  circumstance  with  the  greatest  refinement 
in  the  case  of  the  German  invasion  of  "poor  little  Bel- 
gium," the  shooting  of  the  "heroic  nurse,"  Edith  Cavell, 
and  other  incidents.  Those  who  had  charge  of  the  Ber- 
lin propaganda,  on  the  other  hand,  made  very  little  of 
such  occurrences  on  the  enemy  side,  e.g.,  the  violation 
of  Greece,  the  bombing  of  the  Corpus  Christi  procession 


54         MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

in  Karlsruhe,  etc.  One  thing  that  would  have  exerted 
a  tremendous  influence  in  America,  if  its  publicity  had 
been  handled  with  only  average  skill,  was  the  sufferings 
of  our  children,  women  and  old  people  as  a  result  of  the 
British  hunger  blockade — that  they  have  made  no  at- 
tempt to  bring  to  the  notice  of  the  world. 

On  the  other  hand  they  put  themselves  to  the  greatest 
possible  trouble  to  lay  "The  Truth  About  the  War" 
before  American  public  opinion.  This,  however,  fell  on 
unfavorable  ground,  for  the  American  does  not  care  to 
be  instructed.  He  had  no  interest  in  learning  the 
"truth"  which  the  German  Press  communications  and 
explanatory  pamphlets  were  so  anxious  to  impress  upon 
him.  The  American  likes  to  form  his  own  opinions  and 
so  only  requires  facts.  The  possibility  of  exerting  in- 
fluence therefore  lies  rather  in  the  choice  of  the  facts 
and  the  way  in  which  they  are  presented,  than  in  logical 
and  convincing  argument.  It  is  all  the  easier  to  influence 
him  by  the  well-timed  transmission  of  skilfully  disposed 
facts,  since  his  usually  very  limited  general  knowledge 
and  his  complete  ignorance  of  European  affairs  deprive 
him  of  the  simplest  premises  for  a  critical  judgment 
of  the  facts  presented  to  him  from  the  enemy  side.  It  is 
quite  incredible  what  the  American  public  will  swallow 
in  the  way  of  lies  if  they  are  only  repeated  often  enough 
and  properly  served  up.  It  all  turns  on  which  side  gets 
the  news  in  first;  for  the  first  impression  sticks.  Cor- 
rections are  generally  vain,  especially  as  they  appear 
as  a  rule  in  small  print  and  in  inconspicuous  places. 
When,  for  example,  the  American  Press  got  the  first 
news  of  the  "destruction"  of  Rheims  cathedral  from 
London  and  in  the  English  version,  no  German  correc- 
tion, however  well-founded,  would  succeed  in  removing 
the  first  impression. 

Particularly  ineffective  in  their  influence  on  American 


THE  GERMAN  PEOPAGANDA  55 

public  opinion — as  may  be  said  here  in  anticipation — 
have  been  the  majority  of  our  official  Notes.  In  view 
of  the  subsequent  ever-increasing  interruption  of  the 
news  service  from  Germany,  they  were  the  last  and  only 
means  by  which  the  German  standpoint  could  be  brought 
before  the  American  people.  Their  effectiveness  de- 
pended entirely  on  the  impression  that  they  made  on 
American  public  opinion  and  not  on  the  Washington 
Government;  yet  they  were  nearly  always  drawn  up  in 
Berlin  in  the  form  of  juristic  precis,  propagandist  but 
quite  futile.' 

All  these  factors  must  be  taken  into  consideration  in 
attempting  to  estimate  the  success  of  our  propaganda 
in  the  United  States.  They  show  that  on  the  one  hand 
the  prevailing  conditions  of  American  public  opinion 
were  extraordinarily  unfavorable  to  our  propaganda, 
and  that  the  support  it  received  from  home,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  was  misguided. 

Dr.  Dernburg,  then,  had  not  a  chance  during  the  eight 
months  of  his  activity  in  America  of  transforming  her 
into  a  pro-German  country,  and  it  is  certain  that  no  one 
else  could  have  done  it  in  his  place.  But  he  succeeded 
to  a  great  extent,  and  within  a  comparatively  short 
time,  in  more  or  less  crippling  the  enemy  propaganda, 
and  at  least  in  gradually  rendering  ineffective  the  gross- 
est misrepresentations  of  our  enemies.  By  his  own 
writings  and  other  methods  of  spreading  the  truth,  and 
particularly  by  the  numerous  brochures  and  books,  which 
at  his  suggestion  were  written  by  American  supporters 
of  the  German  cause  and  distributed  in  thousands 
directly  or  indirectly  by  the  Press  Bureau  with  the  help 
of  a  skilfully  compiled  address-book,  he  succeeded  in 
exerting  very  considerable  influence.  By  keeping  in  touch 
with  American  journalists  and  other  influential  persons 
he  did  much  good  work,  particularly  in  the  first  months 


56          MY   THREE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

of  the  war.  His  connection  with  Irish  leaders  laid  the 
foundation  for  a  co-operation  which  in  the  following 
year  was  of  great  importance  to  our  position  in  the 
United  States,  and  which,  with  a  somewhat  more  intelli- 
gent backing  by  onr  Government  departments  at  home, 
might  have  been  more  fruitful  still. 

One  branch  of  our  propaganda  which  was  also  initiated 
under  Dr.  Dernburg,  bit  was  chiefly  developed  after 
his  departure,  was  the  moving-picture  propaganda,  for 
which  a  very  efficient  company  was  floated  by  Privy 
Councillor  Albert.  At  first  it  was  intended  to  be  an 
agency  for  the  circulation  of  films  from  Germany.  As, 
however,  suitable  material  for  the  American  market 
could  not  be  obtained  there,  the  "American  Correspon- 
dent Film  Co."  decided  to  send  its  own  agents  to  Ger- 
many and  Austria  with  a  view  to  making  suitable  films 
for  their  purpose.  In  this  way  several  important  film- 
dramas  were  produced  which  have  had  great  success  in 
hundreds  of  American  cinemas.  In  spite  of  this  the 
company  had  finally  to  be  liquidated,  chiefly  owing  to 
lack  of  support  from  the  military  authorities  at  home. 

With  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania  our  propaganda  of 
enlightenment  in  the  United  States  substantially  came 
to  an  end.  Henceforward  the  principal  aim  of  its 
activity,  which,  after  Dr.  Dernburg 's  departure,  came 
under  the  direction  of  Privy  Councillor  Albert,  was  to 
keep  the  United  States  out  of  the  war.  Side  by  side 
with  this,  an  attempt  was  made  to  influence  public  feel- 
ing against  the  export  of  arms  and  ammunition  and 
against  the  Anglo-French  loan,  and  to  demonstrate  the 
increasingly  prejudiced  effect  wrought  by  England  on 
American  economic  interests.  In  November,  1915,  I 
urged,  as  I  cabled  at  the  time  to  Chancellor  Bethmann- 
Hollweg,  the  complete  suppression  of  propaganda.  The 
Press  Bureau  in  New  York  continued  under  the  direction 


THE   GERMAN   PROPAGANDA  57 

of  Dr.  Fuehr,  until  the  breaking  off  of  relations  between 
America  and  Germany.  It  concerned  itself,  however, 
apart  from  certain  regular  literary  contributions  to  cer- 
tain journals,  less  with  propaganda  work  than  with 
keeping  an  eye  on  the  American  Press  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  news  service  to  and  from  Germany  as  well 
as  to  South  America  and  Eastern  Asia. 


CHAPTER 

POLITICAL  EVENTS   PBECEDING  THE 
"LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT 

As  I  mentioned  in  the  first  chapter,  it  was  to  be  ex- 
pected that  public  opinion  in  America  would  range  itself 
overwhelmingly  on  the  side  of  the  Entente.  As  a  result 
of  the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality,  this  happened  far 
in  excess  of  expectation.  The  violence  of  the  statements 
of  the  anti-German  party  called  forth  strong  replies  from 
those  who  desired  a  strict  neutrality  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States.  The  adherents  of  the  latter  party  were 
always  stigmatized  as  pro-Germans,  although  even  the 
German- Americans  never  called  for  anything  more  than 
an  unconditional  neutrality.  This  also  was  the  aim  for 
which  the  German  policy  was  working  through  its  repre- 
sentatives in  America.  We  never  hoped  for  anything 
further. 

The  waves  of  excitement  ran  so  high  that  even  the 
private  relations  of  the  adherents  of  both  parties  con- 
tending suffered.  President  Wilson,  therefore,  on  the 
18th  August,  1914,  issued  a  proclamation  to  the  Ameri- 
can people  which  is  of  special  interest  because  it  lays 
down  in  a  definite  form  the  policy  to  which  he  logically 
and  unwaveringly  adhered  until  the  rupture. 

In  this  proclamation  the  following  sentences  occur: 
"Every  man  who  really  loves  America  will  act  and  speak 
in  the  true  spirit  of  neutrality,  which  is  the  spirit  of 
impartiality  and  fairness  and  friendliness  to  all  con- 
cerned." And  further:  "The  people  of  the  United 


PBECEDING   THE   "LUSITANIA"  59 

States  .  .  .  may  be  divided  in  camps  of  hostile  opinion. 
.  .  .  Such  divisions  among  us  would  be  fatal  to  our 
peace  of  mind  and  might  seriously  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  proper  performance  of  our  duty  as  the  one  great 
nation  at  peace,  the  one  people  holding  itself  ready  to 
play  a  part  of  impartial  mediation  and  speak  the  coun- 
sels of  peace  and  accommodation,  not  as  a  partisan,  but 
as  a  friend. " 

The  policy  outlined  in  these  quotations  from  Mr.  Wil- 
son's proclamation  won  the  approval  of  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  American  people,  for  even  among 
the  supporters  of  the  Entente  there  was  only  a  small 
minority  who  desired  an  active  participation  in  the  war 
by  the  United  States.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  the 
traditional  American  policy  seemed  to  preclude  any  such 
intervention  in  European  affairs,  it  was  to  the  interest 
of  the  United  States  to  play  with  unimpaired  power  the 
role  of  Arbiter  mundi,  when  the  States  of  ancient  Europe, 
tired  of  tearing  one  another  to  pieces,  at  last  longed  for 
peace  again.  America  could  not  but  hope  that  neither 
of  the  two  warring  parties  would  come  out  of  the  war 
in  a  dominating  position.  There  is,  therefore,  a  certain 
modicum  of  truth  in  the  view  frequently  expressed  in 
Germany  that  the  United  States  would  in  any  case 
finally  have  entered  the  war  to  prevent  the  so-called 
"German  Peace."  But  the  question  is  whether  such  a 
peace  was  possible  in  face  of  the  superior  strength  of 
our  enemies.  If  we  had  won  the  first  battle  of  the  Marne 
and  had  then  been  prepared  to  restore  Belgium  and 
conclude  a  moderate  peace,  it  is  conceivable  that  we 
might  have  come  to  terms  with  England  on  the  basis 
of  a  kind  of  Treaty  of  Amiens.  After  the  loss  of  the 
battle  of  the  Marne  a  "German  Peace "  was  out  of 
the  question.  The  possibility  of  such  a  peace  has  never 
recurred.  It  was  therefore  necessary  for  the  German 


60         MY   THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

policy  to  strive  for  a  peace  by  understanding  on  the 
basis  of  the  status  quo.  Just  as  Frederick  the  Great 
defended  Prussia's  newly  won  position  as  a  great  Power 
against  overwhelming  odds,  so  we  were  fighting  under 
similar  conditions  for  the  maintenance  of  Germany's 
position  in  the  world. 

Our  Government  had  declared  urbi  et  orbi  that  they 
were  waging  a  defensive  war,  and  were  therefore  obliged 
to  regulate  their  policy  accordingly.  If  we  had  desired 
f,  puace  like  that  of  Hubertusburg  we  should  have  won. 
It  is  often  contended  in  Germany  to-day  that  it  would 
still  have  been  possible  to  attain  this  end.  I  have  strug- 
gled for  it  in  America  for  two  and  a  half  years  and  am 
as  convinced  to-day  as  I  was  then,  that  by  acquiescing 
in  the  policy  of  the  United  States  we  should  have  ob- 
tained a  peace  which  would  have  met  the  needs  of  the 
German  people,  if  only  those  who  desired  the  same  thing 
at  home  had  been  in  a  position  to  carry  their  wishes 
through. 

In  Germany  it  is  also  alleged,  contrary  to  my  own 
opinion,  that  the  German  people  could  not  have  held 
out  if  they  had  not  been  driven  on  by  the  "Will  to  con- 
quer." I  regard  this  view  as  an  injustice  to  the  German 
nation.  If  our  home  propaganda,  instead  of  continually 
awakening  vain  hopes,  had  insisted  on  telling  the  real 
truth,  the  German  people  would  have  faced  danger  to 
the  last.  We  ought  to  have  repeated  constantly  that 
our  situation  was  very  serious,  but  that  we  must  clench 
our  teeth,  and  our  Government  must  be  ready  to  seize 
the  first  opportunity  to  end  the  defensive  war  by  a  cor- 
responding peace. 

The  controversy  about  the  "German  peace"  or  "peace 
by  negotiation"  must  be  touched  on  here  because  it 
formed  the  nucleus  of  the  diplomatic  struggle  in  Wash- 
ington. At  the  beginning  of  the  war  these  catchwords 


PEECEDING   THE   "LUSITANIA"  61 

had  not  yet  been  invented,  but  their  substance  even  then 
controlled  the  situation.  The  attitude  of  the  American 
Government  and  public  opinion  towards  us  depended  in 
the  first  place  on  whether  they  thought  that  we  were 
striving  for  world-mastery  or  were  waging  a  defensive 
war. 

Immediately  after  my  return  from  Europe  I  called  on 
President  Wilson,  who  had  taken  the  opportunity  of  the 
war  and  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  to  withdraw  even 
more  than  ever  from  the  outer  world.  He  was  generally 
known  as  the  recluse  of  the  "White  House.  He  only  re- 
ceived people  with  whom  he  had  political  business  to 
settle.  Particularly  from  diplomats  and  other  foreigners 
Mr.  Wilson  kept  very  aloof,  because  he  was  anxious  to 
avoid  the  appearance  of  preference  or  partiality. 

After  the  disillusionment  of  Versailles  it  is  difficult 
for  a  German  to  form  an  unbiassed  judgment  of  Mr. 
Wilson.  We  must  not  forget,  however,  that  no  serious 
attempt  has  ever  been  made  in  Germany  to  get  an  un- 
prejudiced estimate  of  Mr.  Wilson's  personality.  In  the 
course  of  the  war  he  has  come  to  be  regarded  more  and 
more  as  unneutral  and  anti-German,  whereas,  to  the 
average  American  public  opinion,  he  appeared  in  quite 
a  different  light.  Later,  after  the  defeat  of  our  arms, 
we  hailed  Mr.  Wilson  as  the  Messiah  who  was  to  save 
Germany  and  the  whole  world  from  dire  distress.  When, 
therefore,  at  Versailles,  the  President,  instead  of  un- 
folding and  carrying  through  a  far-reaching  programme 
for  the  general  reconstruction  of  the  world,  approved 
all  the  ultra-chauvinistic  and  nationalistic  mistakes  of 
the  European  statesmen  and  proclaimed  as  the  aim 
of  the  peace  the  punishment  of  Germany,  Mr.  Wilson 
was  set  down  in  Germany  without  more  ado  as  a 
hypocrite. 

I  think  that  through  all  the  phases  of  the  war  the  Ger- 


62         MY   THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

man  opinion  of  Mr.  Wilson  has  suffered  from  sheer 
exaggeration.  The  chief  mistake  lay  in  separating  Wil- 
son's personality  from  public  opinion  in  the  United 
States.  In  spite  of  his  strong  will  and  his  autocratic 
leanings,  Mr.  Wilson  is  still,  in  the  first  place,  a  perfect 
type  of  the  American  politician.  In  his  speeches  he 
always  tries  to  voice  public  opinion,  and  in  his  policy  to 
follow  its  wishes. 

He  certainly  tries  to  direct  and  influence  public  opinion. 
But  he  changes  his  front  at  once  if  he  notices  that  he 
has  strayed  from  the  way  that  the  aura  popularis  would 
have  him  follow.  In  order  to  form  a  correct  judgment 
of  Mr.  Wilson's  actions  and  speeches  it  is  always  neces- 
sary to  ask  oneself,  in  the  first  place,  what  end  he  has 
in  view  for  his  own  political  position  and  that  of  his 
party  in  America.  He  proclaims  in  a  most  dazzling  way 
the  ideals  of  the  American  people.  But  their  realization 
always  depends  on  his  own  actual  political  interests  and 
those  of  the  Democratic  party.  Mr.  Wilson's  attitude 
has  always  been  synonymous  with  that  of  his  party,  be- 
cause the  latter  can  produce  no  other  personality  capable 
of  competing  with  the  President.  Therefore,  Mr.  Wil- 
son always  met  with  little  or  no  opposition  within  the 
Democratic  party,  and  he  was  able  to  follow  for  a  long 
time  his  own  inclination  to  adopt  a  quite  independent 
policy. 

Socially  the  President  is  very  congenial  when  once  he 
has  made  up  his  mind  to  emerge  from  his  narrow  circle. 
He  has  not  the  reputation  of  being  a  loyal  friend,  and 
is  accused  of  ingratitude  by  many  of  his  former  col- 
leagues and  enthusiastic  adherents.  In  any  case,  how- 
ever, Mr.  Wilson  is  an  implacable  enemy  when  once  he 
feels  himself  personally  attacked  or  slighted.  As  a  re- 
sult of  his  sensitiveness  he  has  a  strong  tendency  to 
make  the  mistake  of  regarding  political  differences  of 


PBECEDING  THE   "LUSITANIA"  63 

opinion  as  personal  antipathy.  The  President  has  never 
forgiven  the  German  Government  for  having  caused  the 
failure  of  his  peace-policy  of  1916-17,  which  was  sup- 
ported by  public  opinion  in  America.  In  Germany  his 
later  speeches,  in  which  he  drew  a  distinction  between 
the  German  people  and  the  Imperial  Government,  were 
regarded  as  hypocrisy.  Such  a  differentiation  was  at 
that  time  based  on  American  public  feeling,  which  held 
autocracy  and  militarism  responsible  for  the  disasters 
which  had  been  brought  upon  the  world.  The  question 
has,  however,  never  been  answered  why  this  distinction 
was  abandoned  by  Mr.  "Wilson  at  Versailles.  Without 
wishing  in  any  way  either  to  accuse  or  defend  him  I 
consider  the  answer  to  this  riddle  to  be  that  the  Presi- 
dent allowed  himself  to  be  convinced  of  the  complicity 
of  the  German  people  by  the  statesmen  of  the  Entente. 
He  was  at  the  time  in  a  mood  with  regard  to  us  which 
predisposed  him  to  such  influences.  Mr.  Wilson  was  by 
origin,  up-bringing  and  training  a  pacifist.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  with  us  and  in  neutral  countries  it  was 
the  pacifists  themselves  who  were  the  most  indignant 
at  the  Peace  of  Versailles,  that  they  were  the  very  people 
who  for  the  most  part  advised  against  the  signature  of 
this  peace,  one  can  imagine  the  feelings  aroused  in  a 
disillusioned  pacifist  like  Wilson  by  those  whom  he  re- 
gards as  responsible  for  having  thwarted  the  possibility 
of  an  ideal  pacifist  peace. 

Apart  from  this,  Mr.  Wilson  at  Versailles  no  longer 
dominated  American  public  opinion,  and  his  political 
power  consequently  collapsed.  In  the  United  States  the 
old  indifference  to  European  affairs  regained  the  upper 
hand.  Men  were  satisfied  with  having  brought  about  a 
victory  over  autocracy  and  militarism.  They  wanted 
nothing  further.  The  American  troops  were  crowding 
home,  and,  finally,  feeling  in  the  United  States  was  still 


64         MY   THREE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

so  strongly  against  us  that  no  one  would  have  under- 
stood the  President  if  he  had  caused  a  rupture  with  his 
Allies  on  our  behalf. 

At  Versailles,  too,  an  outstanding  peculiarity  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  may  have  played  a  part  which  even  during  the 
earlier  negotiations  had  been  of  great  importance.  He 
is  a  man  who  is  slow  to  make  up  his  mind,  and  likes  to 
postpone  decisions  until  they  are  inevitable.  He  is  al- 
ways ready  to  wait  and  see  whether  the  situation  may 
not  improve  or  some  unexpected  event  occur.  How  often 
during  the  Washington  negotiations  did,  first  I  and  then 
our  enemies,  believe  that  we  had  set  President  Wilson 
on  a  definite  course.  But  again  and  again  the  requisite 
decision  would  be  postponed.  In  Washington  it  was 
generally  taken  under  the  strong  pressure  of  public 
opinion.  In  Versailles  the  Entente  statesmen  may  well 
have  forced  a  decision  by  displaying  a  stronger  will  and 
a  wider  knowledge  of  European  affairs.  Mr.  Wilson  was 
at  Versailles  in  the  position  of  the  giant  Antaeus,  who 
drew  his  strength  from  his  native  soil.  Once  away  from 
American  ground  Hercules  (Clemenceau)  was  able  to 
crush  him, 

At  the  time  I  am  now  describing  the  circumstances 
were  quite  different,  because  at  that  time  Mr.  Wilson 
had  a  reliable  support  for  his  policy  in  American  public 
opinion.  In  Germany,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  war, 
great  resentment  was  felt  against  Mr.  Wilson  for  the 
cold  negative  in  his  reply  to  the  Emperor's  telegram  in 
which  Mr.  Wilson  was  asked  to  condemn  the  atrocities 
perpetrated  by  the  Belgian  population  and  francs-tireurs. 
It  was  not,  however,  noticed  in  Germany  that  the  Presi- 
dent at  the  same  time  likewise  refused  to  receive  a  Bel- 
gian deputation  which  came  to  America  to  beg  for  his 
help. 

During  my  conversation  with  the  President  already 


PRECEDING  THE   "LUSITANIA"  65 

mentioned,  he  made  a  statement  on  the  lines  of  his 
proclamation  of  neutrality  of  which  I  have  already  given 
the  substance.  My  reply  that  the  .American  neutrality 
seemed  to  us  to  be  tinged  with  sympathy  for  our  enemies 
Mr.  Wilson  contradicted  emphatically.  He  thought  that 
this  appearance  was  the  result  of  England's  naval 
power,  which  he  could  do  nothing  to  alter.  In  this  con- 
nection the  President  made  the  following  remark,  which 
struck  me  very  forcibly  at  the  time : 

"The  United  States  must  remain  neutral,  because 
otherwise  the  fact  that  her  population  is  drawn  from 
so  many  European  countries  would  give  rise  to  serious 
domestic  difficulties." 

My  remark  about  the  benevolence  of  the  United  States' 
neutrality  towards  our  enemies  was  at  the  time  chiefly 
prompted  by  the  differences  that  had  arisen  with  regard 
to  the  wireless  stations. 

The  fact  that  this  question  arose  gives  yet  another 
proof  of  how  little  we  were  prepared  for  war.  By  Ger- 
man enterprise  two  wireless  stations  had  been  erected  on 
the  east  coast  of  the  United  States  as  a  means  of  direct 
communication  with  Europe,  one  at  Sayville  (Long  Is- 
land, the  other  at  Tuckerton  (New  Jersey).  Both  were 
partly  financed  by  American  and  French  capital.  As 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  cable  fell  entirely  into 
English  hands  and  was  destroyed  by  them,  we  had  no 
telegraphic  communication  with  home  at  our  disposal. 
We  had  to  fall  back  exclusively  on  the  wireless  stations, 
when,  as  frequently  happened,  we  were  unable  to  make 
use  of  the  circuitous  routes  via  neutral  countries.  Un- 
fortunately it  appeared  that  the  legal  position  with  re- 
gard to  the  proprietorship  of  the  two  stations  was  not 
clear.  Actions  were  immediately  brought  on  the  French 
side,  and  the  closing  of  the  stations  by  decree  of  the 


66         MY   TH5EE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

courts  demanded.  Under  these  circumstances  it  was  for- 
tunate for  us  that  the  American  Government,  after  tedi- 
ous negotiations  with  me,  took  over  possession  of  both 
stations.  Otherwise  they  would  have  been  closed  and  we 
should  have  been  unable  to  use  them. 

Our  satisfaction  at  this  decision  was  modified  by  the 
establishment  of  a  censorship  of  radio-telegrams  on  the 
part  of  the  American  Government  on  the  strength  of 
the  Hague  Convention,  which  prohibits  the  communica- 
tion by  wireless  from  a  neutral  country  with  the  mili- 
tary or  naval  forces  of  a  combatant.  If  the  stations  had 
been  publicly  used  before  the  war  we  should  have  stood 
on  firm  legal  ground,  for  such  cases  are  excepted  by  the 
Hague  Convention.  Unfortunately  the  stations  were  in 
1914  only  partially  completed,  and  the  application  of  the 
clauses  in  question  was  therefore  doubtful.  It  is  true 
that  the  stations  were  ready  for  immediate  use,  but  as 
a  result  of  the  French  protest  the  American  Government 
held  strictly  to  the  legal  standpoint.  In  these  negotia- 
tions we  had  to  content  ourselves  with  pointing  out  that 
whereas  our  enemies  could  pass  on  military  information 
to  their  Governments  by  means  of  coded  cablegrams,  we 
should  be  confined  to  the  use  of  the  wireless  stations. 
Finally  we  came  to  an  agreement  with  the  American 
Government  that  they  should  have  a  copy  of  the  code 
which  we  used  for  the  wireless  telegrams.  In  this  way 
their  contents  were  kept  secret  from  the  enemy,  but  not 
from  the  Washington  Government.  This  course  we  only 
agreed  to  as  a  last  resource  as  it  was  not  suitable  for 
handling  negotiations  in  which  the  American  Govern- 
ment was  concerned. 

The  course  of  this  controversy  was  typical  of  the  fate 
of  German  interests  in  America  throughout  the  whole 
period  of  American  neutrality.  Unfortunately  we  had 
absolutely  no  means  at  hand  for  putting  any  pressure  on 


PRECEDING  THE   "LUSITANIA"  67 

America  in  our  own  favor.  In  comparison  with  the  pub- 
lic  opinion  in  the  Eastern  States,  which  followed  in  the 
wake  of  the  Entente,  and  with  the  authoritative  circles 
of  New  York,  Wilson's  Administration  without  question 
strove  for  an  honorable  neutrality.  In  spite  of  this  most 
of  their  decisions  were  materially  unfavorable  to  us,  so 
that  a  German  observer  from  a  distance  might,  not  with- 
out reason,  obtain  the  impression  that  the  neutrality  of 
the  American  Government  was  mere  hypocrisy  and  that 
all  kinds  of  pretexts  were  found  for  helping  England. 

This  was  not  the  chief  impression  made  on  a  near  ob- 
server. In  politics  the  Americans  are  first  and  foremost 
jurists,  and  indeed  in  a  narrower  and  more  literal  sense 
than  the  English  Imperialists,  with  whom,  according  to 
their  old  traditions,  justice  only  serves  as  a  cloak  for 
their  political  ambitions.  I  cannot  judge  how  far  the 
Americans  have  become  full-blooded  Imperialists  since 
their  entry  into  the  war,  i.e.,  since  about  1917.  At  the 
time  of  which  I  speak  this  was  far  from  being  the  case. 
If,  moreover,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  majority  of  the  deci- 
sions of  the  United  States  turned  out  unfavorably  to  us, 
the  question  of  the  American  motives  should  have  been 
carefully  differentiated  from  the  other  question  as  to 
what  inferences  may  be  drawn  from  the  state  of  affairs. 
Even  if  we  had  had  just  reason  to  complain  of  unfair 
treatment  it  was  for  us  to  be  as  indulgent  towards  Amer- 
ica as  was  compatible  with  our  final  aim  not  to  lose  the 
war.  The  question  is  not  whether  we  had  cause  for  re- 
sentment and  retaliation,  but  simply  what  benefit  could 
be  extracted  for  Germany  out  of  the  existing  situation. 

At  this  visit  to  the  White  House,  the  only  question  that 
was  acute  was  that  of  the  wireless  stations.  This  and 
the  negotiations  which  I  shall  mention  later,  dealing  with 
the  coaling  of  our  ships  of  war  and  the  American  export 
of  arms  and  ammunition,  I  discussed  with  Secretary  of 


68 

State  Bryan.  The  first  time  I  visited  this  gentleman  he 
exclaimed  with  great  warmth:  "Now  you  see  I  was  right 
when  I  kept  repeating  that  preparation  for  war  was  the 
best  way  of  bringing  war  about.  All  the  European  Pow- 
ers were  armed  to  the  teeth  and  always  maintained  that 
this  heavy  armament  was  necessary  to  protect  them  from 
war.  Now  the  fallacy  is  obvious.  We  alone  live  in  peace 
because  we  are  unarmed." 

Mr.  Bryan  has  always  been  a  genuine  pacifist,  and 
later  sacrificed  his  Ministerial  appointment  to  his  con- 
victions. So  long  as  he  remained  in  office  he  continued 
to  influence  the  American  Government  to  maintain  neu- 
trality and  constantly  strove  to  bring  about  peace. 

A  first  attempt  in  this  direction  was  made  from  Wash- 
ington immediately  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  but 
met  with  no  response  from  the  combatant  Powers.  At 
the  beginning  of  September,  Mr.  Bryan  repeated  the 
offer  of  American  mediation. 

At  that  time  a  vigorous  agitation  had  begun  in  New 
York  for  the  restoration  of  peace.  Mr.  William  Kan- 
dolph  Hearst,  the  well-known  editor  of  widely  circulated 
newspapers,  and  other  well-known  personalities,  called 
together  great  meetings  at  which  America's  historical 
mission  was  said  to  be  the  stopping  of  the  wholesale 
murder  that  was  going  on  in  Europe.  At  this  time  I  was, 
together  with  several  other  gentlemen,  staying  with 
James  Speyer,  the  banker,  at  his  country  house.  The 
host  and  the  majority  of  the  guests,  among  whom  was 
the  late  ambassador  in  Constantinople,  Oscar  Straus, 
were  supporters  of  the  prevailing  pacific  movement. 
The  question  of  American  mediation  was  eagerly  dis- 
cussed at  the  dinner  table.  Mr.  Straus  was  an  extremely 
warm  adherent  of  this  idea.  He  turned  particularly  to 
me  because  the  German  Government  were  regarded  as 
opponents  of  the  pacifist  ideas.  I  said  that  we  had  not 


PRECEDING  THE   "LUSITANIA"  69 

desired  the  war  and  would  certainly  be  ready  at  the  first 
suitable  opportunity  for  a  peace  by  understanding. 
Thereupon  Mr.  Straus  declared  that  he  would  at  once 
travel  to  Washington  and  repeat  my  words  to  Mr.  Bryan. 
Immediately  after  dinner  he  went  to  the  station  and  on 
the  following  day  I  received  a  wire  from  the  Secretary 
of  State,  asking  me  to  return  to  Washington  as  soon  as 
I  could  to  discuss  the  matter  with  him.  There  we  had 
a  long  interview  in  his  private  residence,  with  the  result 
that  an  American  offer  of  mediation  was  sent  to  the 
Imperial  Chancellor.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Straus  had  gone 
to  the  ambassadors  of  the  other  combatant  Powers,  who 
all  more  or  less  rejected  the  proposal.  The  friendly 
reply  of  the  German  Government  coincided  in  principle 
with  what  I  had  said,  but  added  that  Mr.  Bryan  should 
first  address  himself  to  the  enemy,  as  the  further  course 
of  the  negotiations  depended  on  their  attitude,  which 
was  not  yet  known.  The  American  Government  never 
returned  to  the  question  and  I  had  no  reason  to  urge  them 
to  do  so.  Any  importunity  on  our  side  would  have  given 
an  impression  of  weakness.  Nevertheless  this  interlude 
was  so  far  favorable  to  us  that  it  contrasted  our  readi- 
ness for  negotiation  with  the  enemy's  refusal. 

In  consequence  of  the  failure  of  their  first  attempt  to 
intervene  the  American  Government  thought  it  necessary 
to  exercise  more  restraint.  In  spite  of  this,  however, 
President  Wilson,  before  the  en4  of  the  winter  of 
1914-15,  sent  his  intimate  friend,  Colonel  Edward  M. 
House,  to  London,  Paris  and  Berlin,  in  order  to  ascertain 
semi-officially  whether  there  were  any  possibilities  of 
peace. 

Mr.  House,  who  lived  in  an  unpretentious  abode  in 
New  York,  occupied  a  peculiar  and  very  influential  po- 
sition at  the  White  House.  Bound  to  the  President  by 
intimate  friendship,  he  has  always  refused  to  accept  any 


70         MY   THREE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

Ministerial  appointment,  either  at  home  or  abroad,  al- 
though he  was  only  possessed  of  modest  means  and 
could  certainly  have  had  any  post  in  the  Cabinet  or  as 
an  ambassador  that  he  had  liked  to  choose.  In  this  way 
he  remained  entirely  independent,  and  since  President 
.Wilson's  entry  into  office,  was  his  confidential  adviser 
in  domestic,  and  particularly  in  foreign  politics.  As  such 
Colonel  House  had  a  position  that  is  without  precedent 
in  American  history.  During  his  stay  in  London,  at  this 
time,  he  is  said  to  have  described  himself  to  the  wife  of 
an  English  Cabinet  Minister,  herself  not  favorably  dis- 
posed towards  America,  as  the  "eyes  and  ears  of  the 
President."  I  know  from  my  own  experience  how  thor- 
oughly and  effectively  he  was  able  to  inform  his  friend 
on  the  European  situation,  and  how  perfectly  correctly, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  interpreted  Mr.  Wilson's  views. 

It  was  not  easy  to  become  more  closely  acquainted  with 
Colonel  House,  whose  almost  proverbial  economy  of 
speech  might  be  compared  with  the  taciturnity  of  old 
Moltke. 

Unlike  the  majority  of  his  fellow-nationals,  and  par- 
ticularly his  immediate  fellow-countrymen  of  the  South- 
ern States,  Colonel  House,  while  possessing  great  per- 
sonal charm  and  the  courtesy  that  is  characteristic  of 
the  Southern  States,  is  reserved  and  retiring.  It  took 
a  considerable  time  before  I  got  to  know  this  able  and 
interesting  man  at  all  inthnately.  I  did  not  become  in- 
timate with  him  until  the  time  of  the  journey  to  Berlin 
already  mentioned.  Even  then  it  was  the  earnest  wish 
of  Colonel  House  to  obtain  for  his  great  friend  the  chief 
credit  of  being  the  founder  of  peace.  Colonel  House  was 
particularly  well  fitted  to  be  the  champion  of  the  Presi- 
dent's ideas.  I  have  never  known  a  more  upright  and 
honorable  pacifist  than  he.  He  had  a  horror  of  war  be- 
cause he  regarded  it  as  the  contradiction  of  his  ideals 


PRECEDING  THE  "LUSITANIA"  71 

of  the  nobility  of  the  human  race.  He  often  spoke  with 
indignation  of  the  people  who  were  enriching  themselves 
out  of  the  war,  and  added  that  he  would  never  touch  the 
profits  of  war  industry.  He  afterwards  repeatedly  told 
me  that  he  had  spoken  as  energetically  in  London  against 
the  blockade,  which  was  a  breach  of  international  law, 
as  against  the  submarine  war  in  Berlin.  Both  these  types 
of  warfare  were  repugnant  to  the  warm,  sympathetic 
heart  of  Colonel  House.  He  could  not  understand  why 
women  and  children  should  die  of  hunger  or  drowning 
in  order  that  the  aims  of  an  imperialist  policy,  which 
he  condemned,  might  be  attained.  At  the  same  time  he 
was  convinced  that  neither  of  these  types  could  decide 
the  war,  but  would  only  serve  to  rouse  in  both  the  com- 
batant countries  a  boundless  hatred  which  would  cer- 
tainly stand  in  the  way  of  future  co-operation  in  the  work 
of  restoring  peace.  In  many  of  his  remarks  at  that  time, 
Colonel  House  proved  to  be  right,  since  the  war  was 
decided  mainly  by  the  entry  of  America  and  the  con- 
sequent overwhelming  superiority  in  men,  money  and 
material. 

Meanwhile,  as  a  result  of  the  traffic  in  munitions,  feel- 
ing in  Germany  had  turned  sharply  against  the  United 
States.  Our  position  with  regard  to  this  question  was 
very  unfavorable  as  we  had  no  legal  basis  for  complaint. 
The  clause  of  the  Hague  Convention  which  permitted 
such  traffic  had  been  included  in  the  second  Hague  Con- 
vention at  our  own  suggestion.  Nevertheless  it  was  nat- 
ural that  the  one-sided  support  of  our  enemies  by  the 
rapidly  growing  American  war  industry  roused  strong 
feeling  in  Germany.  As  a  result  there  began  a  contro- 
versy with  the  American  Government  similar  to  that 
with  England  during  the  war  of  1870-71.  Even  in  the 
United  States  there  was  a  considerable  minority  which 
disapproved  of  the  munitions  traffic,  though  on  moral 


72         MY   THREE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

rather  than  political  or  international  grounds.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  the  agitation  of  this  minority  was 
supported  in  every  way  by  the  German  representatives. 
There  was  no  law  in  America  to  prohibit  such  support, 
which  could  not,  moreover,  be  regarded  as  a  breach  of 
American  neutrality.  It  is  true  that  in  this  way  a  few 
Germans  got  themselves  into  an  awkward  position  be- 
cause they  were  suspected  of  stirring  up  the  German- 
Americans,  who  together  with  the  Irish  played  a  lead- 
ing part  in  the  agitation  against  the  Government.  In 
particular,  Dr.  Dernburg  became  unpopular  in  America, 
since  he  began  to  address  meetings  in  addition  to  his 
journalistic  work.  The  Washington  Government  re- 
garded him  as  the  leader  of  the  "hyphenated  Ameri- 
cans" who  were  opposing  the  policy  of  the  President's 
Administration,  because  the  latter  took  up  the  strict  legal 
standpoint  that  the  traffic  in  munitions  was  permissible, 
and  that  it  would  therefore  be  a  breach  of  neutrality  in 
our  favor  if  such  traffic  were  forbidden  after  the  out- 
break of  hostilities.  President  Wilson  himself  even  had 
an  idea  of  nationalizing  the  munition  factories,  which 
would  have  rendered  traffic  with  the  combatant  Powers 
a  breach  of  international  law.  When,  however,  he 
sounded  Congress  on  this  matter,  it  became  evident  that 
a  majority  could  not  be  obtained  for  such  a  step.  The 
United  States  had  already  brought  forward  a  similar 
proposal  at  the  Hague  Conference  with  the  intention 
of  conceding  one  of  the  chief  demands  of  the  pacifists. 
It  was  in  wide  circles  in  America  an  axiom  that  the  muni- 
tions factories  were  the  chief  incentives  to  war.  As  dur- 
ing the  first  winter  of  the  war  there  were  very  few  such 
factories  in  America  the  President's  plan  was  not  merely 
Utopian  but  meant  in  all  seriousness,  in  which  connection 
it  should  be  noted  that  American  industrial  circles  were 
among  Mr.  Wilson's  bitterest  opponents.  If  Mr.  Wil- 


PBECEDING   THE   "LUSITANIA"  73 

son's  proposal  had  been  known  to  German  public  opinion 
he  would  have  been  more  favorably  judged. 
-  The  negotiations  which  I  had  to  carry  out  on  this  ques- 
tion of  the  munitions  traffic  concerned  themselves  also 
with  the  question  of  the  coaling  of  our  ships  of  war. 
This  was  based  on  an  agreement  between  the  American 
Government  and  the  Hamburg- Amerika  line.  The  port 
authorities  had  at  first  shown  themselves  agreeable.  As 
a  result  of  the  English  protest  the  attitude  of  the  Amer- 
ican Government  became  increasingly  strict.  With  the 
actual  coaling  I  had  nothing  to  do.  That  came  within 
the  sphere  of  the  Naval  Attache,  who,  for  obvious  rea- 
sons connected  with  the  conduct  of  the  war  at  sea,  kept 
his  actions  strictly  secret.  My  first  connection  with  this 
question  was  when  I  was  instructed  to  hand  over  to  the 
American  Government  the  following  memorandum,  dated 
15th  December,  1914: 

"According  to  the  provisions  of  general  international 
law,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  neutral  States  from 
allowing  contraband  of  war  to  reach  the  enemies  of  Ger- 
many through  or  out  of  their  territory.  This  is  also 
permitted  by  Article  VII.  of  the  Hague  Convention  of 
the  19th  October,  1907,  dealing  with  the  rights  and  duties 
of  neutrals  in  the  case  of  land  or  sea  war.  If  a  State 
uses  this  freedom  to  the  advantage  of  our  enemies,  that 
State,  according  to  a  generally  recognized  provision  of 
international  law,  which  is  confirmed  in  Article  IX.  of 
the  two  aforesaid  Conventions,  may  not  hamper  Ger- 
many's military  power  with  regard  to  contraband 
through  or  out  of  its  territory. 

"The  declaration  of  neutrality  of  the  United  States 
takes  this  view  fully  into  account  since  the  furnishing 
of  contraband  of  war  to  all  combatants  is  likewise  per- 
mitted: 'All  persons  may  lawfully  and  without  restric- 


74         MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

tion  by  reason  of  the  aforesaid  state  of  war,  manufacture 
and  sell  within  the  United  States,  arms  and  ammunitions 
of  war  and  other  articles  ordinarily  known  as  contraband 
of  war.' 

"This  principle  has  been  accepted  in  the  widest  sense 
by  the  public  declaration  of  the  American  State  Depart- 
ment of  the  15th  October,  1914,  with  regard  to  neutrality 
and  contraband. 

"Nevertheless  different  port  authorities  in  the  United 
States  have  refused  to  supply  the  necessary  fuel  to  mer- 
chant vessels  in  which  it  might  be  carried  to  German 
ships  of  war  on  the  high  seas  or  in  other  neutral  ports. 
According  to  the  principles  of  international  law  already 
mentioned,  there  is  no  need  for  a  neutral  State  to  prevent 
the  transport  of  fuel  in  this  way ;  such  a  State  then  ought 
not  to  hold  up  merchant  ships  loaded  in  this  way  nor 
interfere  with  their  freedom  of  movement,  once  it  has 
countenanced  the  supply  of  contraband  to  the  enemy. 
The  only  case  in  which  it  would  be  the  duty  of  such  a 
nation  to  hamper  the  movements  of  these  ships  in  this 
one-sided  fashion  would  be  one  in  which  such  traffic 
might  be  turning  the  ports  into  German  naval  bases. 
This  might  perhaps  have  been  the  case  if  German  coal 
depots  had  been  situated  at  these  ports,  or  if  the  ships 
used  them  for  a  regular  calling  port  on  their  way  to  the 
German  naval  forces.  It  is,  however,  unnecessary  to 
urge  that  the  occasional  sailing  of  a  merchant  ship  with 
coal  for  German  ships  of  war  does  not  make  a  port  into 
a  base  for  German  naval  enterprises  out  of  keeping  with 
neutrality. 

"Our  enemies  are  obtaining  contraband  of  war  from 
the  United  States,  in  particular  rifles,  to  the  value  of 
many  milliards  of  marks;  this  is  within  their  rights. 
But  toleration  becomes  serious  injustice  if  the  United 
States  refuses  to  allow  the  occasional  provisioning  of  our 


PKECEDING  THE   "LUSITANIA"  75 

ships  of  war  from  her  ports.  This  would  mean  unequal 
treatment  of  the  combatants  and  a  recognized  rule  of 
neutrality  would  be  infringed  to  our  disadvantages. " 

This  memorandum  played  an  important  part  in  the 
subsequent  negotiations,  because  Mr.  Flood,  the  presi- 
dent of  the  Committee  for  Foreign  Affairs  of  the  Amer- 
ican House  of  Eepresentatives,  interpreted  it  as  amount- 
ing to  a  German  agreement  to  the  supply  of  arms  and 
ammunition  to  her  enemies. 

In  view  of  the  situation  in  the  United  States,  it  was 
to  our  interest  to  leave  the  struggle  for  a  prohibition 
of  the  munitions  traffic  to  our  American  friends.  The 
efforts  of  Senator  Stone  in  this  direction  are  well  known, 
and  have  been  recently  quoted  before  the  Commission  of 
the  German  National  Assembly.  If  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  influential  Americans  took  up  the  case  for  the 
prohibition  there  was  far  more  hope  of  bringing  it  about 
than  if  it  was  apparent  that  the  American  Government 
were  surrendering  to  German  pressure.  The  pacifist  Mr. 
Bryan  was  very  sensitive  on  this  point  and  visited  me 
frequently  to  assert  his  neutrality. 

I  therefore  advised  the  Imperial  Government  in  this 
matter  not  to  send  an  official  Note  for  the  moment,  so 
that  the  American  agitation  in  favor  of  the  prohibition 
of  munition  traffic  might  have  full  freedom  for  develop- 
ment. As,  however,  our  enemies  continually  harked  back 
to  the  idea  that  the  Imperial  Government  did  not  take 
exception  to  the  supply  of  munitions,  I  was  forced,  as 
the  result  of  continual  pressure  from  our  American 
friends,  to  alter  my  attitude,  and,  after  receiving  permis- 
sion from  Berlin,  to  hand  to  the  Washington  Government 
on  4th  April,  1915,  a  memorandum,  of  which  I  give  the 
most  important  part  here. 

"Further  I  should  like  to  refer  to  the  attitude  of  the 


76         MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

United  States  towards  the  question  of  the  export  of  arms. 
The  Imperial  Government  is  convinced  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  agree  with  them  on  this  point, 
that  questions  of  neutrality  should  be  dealt  with  not 
merely  with  regard  to  the  strict  letter,  but  the  spirit  also 
must  be  taken  into  consideration,  in  which  neutrality  is 
carried  through. 

"The  situation  arising  out  of  the  present  war  cannot 
be  compared  with  that  in  any  previous  war.  For  this 
reason  no  reference  to  supplies  of  arms  from  Germany 
in  such  wars  is  justified;  for  then  the  question  was  not 
whether  the  combatants  should  be  supplied  with  mate- 
rial but  which  of  the  competing  States  should  secure  the 
contract. 

"In  the  present  war  all  the  nations  which  possess  a 
war-industry  of  any  importance  are  either  themselves 
involved  in  the  war,  or  occupied  with  completing  their 
own  armament,  and  therefore  have  prohibited  the  export 
of  war  material.  The  United  States  are  accordingly  the 
only  neutral  State  in  a  position  to  supply  war-material. 
The  idea  of  neutrality  has,  therefore,  assumed  a  new 
significance,  which  is  quite  independent  of  the  strict  let- 
ter of  the  laws  that  have  hitherto  prevailed.  On  the 
other  hand  the  United  States  are  founding  a  gigantic 
war  industry  in  the  broadest  sense,  and  they  are  not  only 
working  the  existing  plant  but  are  straining  every  nerve 
to  develop  it  and  to  erect  new  factories.  The  interna- 
tional agreement  for  the  protection  of  the  rights  of  neu- 
trals certainly  arose  from  the  necessity  of  protecting  the 
existing  branches  of  industry  in  neutral  countries  as 
far  as  possible  against  an  encroachment  upon  their  pre- 
rogatives. But  it  can  in  no  way  accord  with  the  spirit 
of  honorable  neutrality,  if  advantage  is  taken  of  such 
international  agreements  to  found  a  new  industry  in  a 
neutral  State,  such  as  appears  in  the  development  in  the 


PRECEDING   THE   "LUSITANIA"  77 

United  States  of  an  arms-industry,  the  output  of  which 
can,  in  view  of  the  existing  situation,  be  solely  to  the 
advantage  of  the  combatant  powers. 

"This  industry  is  at  present  only  delivering  its  wares 
to  the  enemies  of  Germany.  The  readiness,  in  theory, 
to  do  the  same  for  Germany,  even  if  the  transport  were 
possible,  does  not  alter  the  case.  If  it  is  the  desire  of 
the  American  people  to  maintain  an  honorable  neutral- 
ity, the  United  States  will  find  the  means  to  stop  this 
one-sided  traffic  in  arms,  or  at  least  to  use  it  for  the  pur- 
pose of  protecting  legitimate  commerce  with  Germany, 
particularly  in  respect  of  foodstuffs.  This  conception 
of  neutrality  should  appeal  all  the  more  to  the  United 
States  in  view  of  the  fact  that  they  have  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  influenced  by  the  same  standpoint  in  their 
policy  in  regard  to  Mexico.  On  the  4th  February,  1914, 
President  Wilson,  according  to  a  statement  of  a  member 
of  Congress  on  30th  December,  1914,  before  the  commis- 
sion for  foreign  affairs  with  regard  to  the  withdrawal 
of  the  prohibition  of  the  export  of  arms  to  Mexico,  said : 
'We  shall  be  observing  true  neutrality  by  taking  into 
consideration  the  accompanying  circumstances  of  the 
case.  .  .  .  He  then  took  up  the  following  point  of  view : 
'Carranza,  in  contrast  to  Huerta,  has  no  ports  at  his 
disposal  for  the  importation  of  war-material,  so  in  his 
case  we  are  bound,  as  a  State,  to  treat  Carranza  and 
Huerta  alike,  if  we  are  to  be  true  to  the  real  spirit  of 
neutrality  and  not  mere  paper  neutrality.' 

"This  point  of  view,  applied  to  the  present  case,  in- 
dicates prohibition  of  the  export  of  arms." 

Although  during  the  war  all  Notes  were  at  once  made 
public,  the  American  Government  were  very  annoyed  at 
my  publishing  this  memorandum,  which  in  any  case 
would  have  met  with  no  success.  The  agitation  for  the 
prohibition  of  the  export  of  arms  and  munitions  was 


78         MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

""V 

vigorously  pressed,  and  in  spite  of  the  "Lusitania  inci- 
dent" never  completely  subsided.  But  the  American 
Government  held  to  their  point  of  view,  which  they  ex- 
plained to  me  on  the  21st  April,  as  follows: 

"In  the  third  place,  I  note  with  sincere  regret  that,  in 
discussing  the  sale  and  exportation  of  arms  by  citizens 
of  the  United  States  to  the  enemies  of  Germany,  Your 
Excellency  seems  to  be  under  the  impression  that  it  was 
within  the  choice  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
notwithstanding  its  professed  neutrality  and  its  diligent 
efforts  to  maintain  it  in  other  particulars,  to  inhibit  this 
trade,  and  that  its  failure  to  do  so  manifested  an  unfair 
attitude  toward  Germany.  This  Government  holds,  as  I 
believe  Your  Excellency  is  aware,  and  as  it  is  constrained 
to  hold  in  view  of  the  present  indisputable  doctrines  of 
accepted  international  law,  that  any  change  in  its  own 
laws  of  neutrality  during  the  progress  of  a  war  which 
would  affect  unequally  the  relations  of  the  United  States 
with  the  nations  at  war  would  be  an  unjustifiable  de- 
parture from  the  principle  of  strict  neutrality  by  which  it 
has  consistently  sought  to  direct  its  actions,  and  I  re- 
spectfully submit  that  none  of  the  circumstances  urged 
in  Your  Excellency's  memorandum  alters  the  principle 
involved.  The  placing  of  an  embargo  on  the  trade  in 
arms  at  the  present  time  would  constitute  such  a  change 
and  be  a  direct  violation  of  the  neutrality  of  the  United 
States.  It  will,  I  feel  assured,  be  clear  to  Your  Excel- 
lency that,  holding  this  view  and  considering  itself  in 
honor  bound  by  it,  it  is  out  of  the  question  for  this  Gov- 
ernment to  consider  such  a  course." 

In  the  meantime,  Colonel  House  returned  from  Europe 
without  having  met  with  any  success,  but  he  had  opened 
useful  personal  relations.  The  Governments  of  all  the 
combatant  Powers  then  held  the  opinion  that  the  time 
had  not  yet  come  when  they  could  welcome  the  mediation 


PRECEDING   THE   "LUSITANIA"  79 

of  President  Wilson.  Colonel  House,  however,  did  not 
allow  the  lack  of  success  of  his  first  mission  to  deter  him 
from  further  efforts,  and  remained  to  the  last  the  keenest 
supporter  of  American  mediation.  Since  this  journey 
Colonel  House  and  I  became  on  very  friendly  and  inti- 
mate terms,  which  should  have  helped  to  bring  about  such 
a  peace, 


CHAPTER  IV 
ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS 

IN  the  preceding  chapter  I  mentioned  that  Dr.  Dern- 
burg's  plan  for  raising  a  loan  in  the  United  States  had 
failed.  Later  the  direction  of  all  onr  economic  and  finan- 
cial affairs  passed  into  the  hands  of  Geheimrat  Albert. 
His  original  task  was  to  organize  in  New  York  extensive 
shipments  of  foodstuffs,  particular  wheat  and  fats,  which 
were  to  be  exported  through  the  New  York  office  of  the 
Hamburg- Amerika  line.  This  depended,  in  the  first  place, 
on  the  possibility  of  raising  the  necessary  funds,  and  in 
the  second,  on  the  possibility  that  England,  out  of  regard 
for  the  neutrals,  and  particularly  the  United  States, 
would  be  compelled  to  abide  by  the  codified  principles  of 
international  law.  Neither  of  these  premises  materialized. 

As  the  necessary  means  for  carrying  through  the 
scheme  could  not  be  raised  it  might  have  been  possible 
to  finance  it  if  the  Government  had  taken  over  the  not 
inconsiderable  funds  of  the  German  banks  and  the  great 
industrial  enterprises,  e.g.,  the  chemical  factories  in  the 
United  States,  and  used  them  for  the  shipments.  The 
suggestions  we  made  to  this  effect  were  not  answered 
until  the  end  of  August,  when  we  arrived  in  New  York 
and  had  already  lost  many  weeks  in  trying  to  negotiate 
the  loan.  One  organ,  which  immediately  after  the  war 
had  taken  up  these  questions  on  its  own  initiative,  failed, 
and  so  nothing  was  done  in  the  whole  wide  sphere  of 
credit,  supply  of  raw  materials  and  foodstuffs  and  ship- 
ping until  my  arrival  with  the  other  gentlemen,  so  that 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  81 

the  most  favorable  opportunity  was  lost.  Remittances 
from  Germany  did  not  arrive  until  long  afterwards,  and 
then  only  to  a  very  modest  extent.  Consequently  the 
whole  economic  scheme  was  considerably  narrowed  and 
hampered  from  the  beginning. 

The  second  assumption,  that  the  United  States,  in  con- 
sideration of  her  great  commercial  connections  with  Ger- 
many, would  maintain  her  rights  as  a  neutral  State  to 
unrestricted  sea  trade  within  the  provisions  of  interna- 
tional law,  proved  to  be  unfounded.  The  United  States, 
at  any  rate  according  to  the  view  of  some  very  distin- 
guished Americans,  as,  for  example,  in  the  journal  New 
Republic,  violated  the  spirit  of  neutrality  when  she  al- 
lowed commerce  of  the  neutrals  one  with  another  to  be 
strangled  by  England.  To  the  interest  in  traffic  with  the 
neutral  States,  and  indirectly  with  Germany,  was  opposed 
the  interest  in  the  still  greater  trade  with  our  enemies, 
to  which  was  added,  and  indeed  to  a  rapidly  increasing 
extent,  the  supply  of  war  material.  The  United  States 
did  not  realize  the  extent  of  their  economic  power  in 
respect  of  England,  as  the  inexperienced,  newly-ap- 
pointed Democratic  Government  had  no  statistics  to 
which  to  refer,  and  from  a  military  point  of  view  were 
defenceless  for  want  of  an  army  or  fleet.  So  England 
was  able,  slowly  and  cautiously,  but  surely,  to  cut  off  the 
Central  Powers  from  the  American  market,  In  view  of 
this  state  of  things  the  important  thing  was  to  pass  all 
shipments  off  as  neutral.  The  exporter  had  to  be  an 
American  or  a  subject  of  neutral  Europe.  The  financing 
had  also  to  be  European,  at  any  rate  outwardly.  The 
destination  could  only  be  a  port  in  Holland,  Scandinavia, 
Spain  or — at  that  time — Italy.  Consequently  it  was  not 
long  before  the  consignments  could  no  longer  be  made 
through  the  New  York  representative  of  the  Hamburg- 
Amerika  line,  but  were  taken  in  hand  by  Herr  Albert 


82          MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

himself,  who  merely  availed  himself  of  the  professional 
advice  of  the  Hamburg- Amerika  line. 

All  decisions  therefore  could  emanate  from  the  same 
source,  which  prevented  loss  of  time,  especially  as  the 
financial  responsibility  also  rested  with  Herr  Albert. 
The  most  important  thing,  however,  was  that  attention 
was  distracted  from  the  shipping,  as  for  a  long  time  Herr 
Albert  remained  unknown,  whereas  the  Hamburg- Amer- 
ika line  from  the  first  was  kept  under  the  closest  obser- 
vation by  England.  On  the  other  hand,  this  arrangement 
exposed  the  cargoes  to  condemnation  by  the  English  prize 
courts  as  they  were  now  State-owned.  But  Herr  Albert 
could  assume — and,  as  it  turned  out,  rightly — that  so 
long  as  the  English  respected  neutral  property,  it  would 
be  difficult  as  a  rule  to  trace  the  shipments  back  to  him. 
Otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  security  for  a  Ger- 
man private  undertaking. 

In  carrying  out  his  task,  Herr  Albert  at  first  shipped 
the  purchased  goods  by  the  usual  lines  (Scandinavia- 
American  line).  Soon,  however,  difficulties  arose,  because 
these  lines,  in  order  to  avoid  being  held  up  in  English 
ports,  would  no  longer  accept  cargoes  which  were  in- 
tended, if  possible,  for  Germany,  so  a  special  line  was 
formed  sailing  under  the  American  flag.  The  direction 
of  this  line  was  in  the  hands  of  an  American  firm  who 
represented  themselves  as  the  owners,  whereas,  in  real- 
ity, the  ships  were  chartered  by  Herr  Albert.  As,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  the  American  flag  was  more 
respected  by  the  English  than  those  of  the  other  neu- 
trals, a  number  of  these  ships  got  through  without  much 
delay.  Later  this  method  of  shipping  also  became  im- 
possible. Then  single  ships  were  chartered — mostly  un- 
der the  American  flag — and  when  the  owners,  from  fear 
of  loss,  refused  the  charter,  or  when  outrageous  condi- 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  83 

tions  made  chartering  impossible,  they  were  bought  out- 
right. The  ships  were  consigned  as  blockade  runners  to  a 
neutral  port,  and  later  either  made  direct  for  Germany  or 
were  taken  in  by  a  German  ship  of  war.  As  the  most  im- 
portant examples  I  may  mention  the  Eir,  Maumee,  Win- 
neconne,  Duneyre,  Andrew,  Welch  and  Prince  Waldemar. 

With  the  tightening  up  of  the  English  measures  and 
blockade  these  undertakings  became  increasingly  difficult, 
and  finally  had  to  be  abandoned.  Moreover  the  cost  and 
the  trouble  of  preparation  grew  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  results.  Every  individual  shipment  had  to  be  pre- 
pared long  beforehand.  Out  of  ten  attempts  often  only 
one  would  succeed.  Very  often  an  attempt  which  had 
cost  weeks  of  work  would  fall  through  at  the  last  moment 
owing  to  the  refusal  of  credit  by  the  banks,  particularly 
when  the  political  position  was  strained,  or  to  an  indis- 
cretion, or  English  watchfulness,  or  difficulties  with  the 
American  port  authorities. 

The  English  surveillance  had  assumed  dimensions  that 
would  not  have  been  possible  without  the  tacit  conni- 
vance, which  at  times  became  active  support,  of  the  Amer- 
ican authorities.  Not  only  did  the  English  consuls  de- 
mand that  in  each  individual  case  the  bills  of  lading 
should  be  submitted  to  them,  but  in  addition  to  this  an 
efficient  surveillance  and  spy  service  was  organized, 
partly  by  American  detective  bureaus  and  partly  by  a 
separate  and  wide-reaching  service.  The  English  had 
confidential  agents  in  all  the  shipping  offices,  whose  serv- 
ices had  for  the  most  part  been  acquired  by  bribery.  At 
various  times  attempts  were  made  to  break  into  Herr 
Albert's  office,  to  learn  the  combination  for  opening  his 
safe,  to  get  hold  of  papers  through  the  charwomen  and 
other  employees,  and  even  to  rob  him  personally  of  pa- 
pers. The  control  of  the  American  port  authorities  was 
within  the  letter  of  the  law,  but  in  practice  it  worked 


84 

very  unfavorably  to  us.  The  regulation  was  that  ship 
and  cargo  must  be  consigned  to  a  definite  port.  This 
regulation  was  drawn  up  purely  for  purposes  of  statis- 
tics, and  consequently  no  importance  was  attached  to  it 
before  the  war.  As  a  rule  the  bills  of  lading  were  filled 
in  by  subordinate  employees  of  the  exporter.  Soon  after 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  a  special  "neutrality  squad" 
was  attached  to  the  "Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York" 
whose  duty  it  was  to  maintain  strict  neutrality  by  seeing 
that  the  said  laws  were  properly  observed.  This  led,  in 
cases  where  there  was  a  suspicion  that  the  cargo  was  not 
intended  for  the  given  port  of  destination,  but  for  Ger- 
many, to  an  exhaustive  inquiry.  This  measure  could  not 
fail  to  act  as  a  deterrent,  and  even  Herr  Albert  was 
seriously  hampered  in  his  enterprises.  The  whole  sys- 
tem amounted  to  a  complement  of  the  English  blockade. 
When  Herr  Albert  finally  succeeded  in  coming  to  an 
agreement  with  the  Customs  authorities  in  this  matter 
a  great  number  of  opportunities  had  been  missed  and 
the  shipments  had  been  made  practically  impossible  by 
the  tightening  of  the  English  blockade. 

There  was  no  question  of  entrusting  the  shipping  to 
American  exporters  who  had  had  long  experience  of 
German  trade.  Herr  Albert  from  the  first  considered 
it  advisable  to  interfere  as  little  as  possible  with  the 
existing  business  relations  between  the  two  countries,  and 
he  left  it  to  the  firms  trading  with  Germany  to  carry 
through  their  commissions  as  best  they  could.  This 
method  of  supplying  Germany  with  food,  however,  com- 
pletely failed.  The  fault  also  lies  partly  with  the  im- 
porters in  Germany.  In  these  circles  it  was  for  a  long 
time  hoped,  but  in  vain,  to  obtain  consignments  from 
American  firms.  Further,  they  clung  too  long  to  the  busi- 
ness methods  of  peace,  demanded  estimates,  bargained 
about  prices,  and,  most  important  of  all,  did  not  realize 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  85 

that  the  risk  to  the  exporter  as  a  result  of  the  English 
blockade  made  special  compensation  or  payment  neces- 
sary. In  consequence  the  valuable  time  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war  was  lost  Very  soon,  however,  the  American 
exporters  withdrew  completely,  because  those  who  had 
had  previous  business  relations  with  Germany  were 
known  to  the  English,  and  so  were  suspected  and  finally 
placed  on  the  black  list.  A  shipment  by  one  of  these 
firms  would  then  at  once  have  been  marked  down  as  des- 
tined for  Germany,  and  would  have  run  risk  of  capture. 
Herr  Albert,  therefore,  made  use  of  special  agencies. 
At  first,  in  addition  to  employing  Danish  firms,  he 
founded  several  new  .American  export  companies.  These 
new  organizations  were  of  course  only  available  for  a 
short  time,  and,  as  soon  as  they  came  under  English  sus- 
picion and  were  consequently  rendered  useless,  had  to  be 
replaced  by  others. 

The  reproach  that  has  been  made  from  time  to  time 
that  these  enterprises  were  confined  to  a  small  clique 
of  confidential  persons  and  firms  seems  to  be  unjustified 
by  the  facts.  The  circumstances  demanded  the  closest 
possible  secrecy,  for  otherwise  the  origin  and  destination 
of  the  cargoes  would  have  been  discovered  by  the  Eng- 
lish secret  service  before  they  left  New  York.  This  would 
have  involved  the  complete  loss  of  the  cargo  as  a  result 
of  the  English  embargo.  That  firms  already  engaged, 
even  though  for  a  short  time,  in  German- American  com- 
merce could  not  be  considered  is  obvious.  Not  only  were 
they  known  to  the  English,  but  in  some  cases  their  Ger- 
man names  already  laid  them  open  to  suspicion.  Ac- 
cordingly, their  occasional  requests  that  they  should  carry 
through  enterprises  of  this  nature  were  consistently  re- 
fused. This  criticism  is  only  made  by  a  small  circle  of 
German-American  firms  grouped  round  the  German 
Union  and  the  so-called  German-American  Chamber  of 


86         MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

Commerce,  and  originated  in  an  anxiety,  understandable 
but  based  on  an  inadequate  knowledge  of  the  facts,  to 
participate  in  the  undertakings. 

Although  the  export  of  raw  material  did  not  actually 
come  within  the  scope  of  Herr  Albert 's  original  commis- 
sion, it  often  became  necessary,  at  special  request  or 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  to  lend  a  helping  hand  in 
the  export  of  raw  material,  particularly  wool  and  cotton. 
In  this  way,  in  the  autumn  of  1914,  the  American  steamer 
Luckeribach  was  successfully  run  through  direct  to  Ger- 
many with  several  million  pounds  of  wool  on  board. 
With  regard  to  cotton,  Herr  Albert,  also  in  the  autumn 
of  1914,  by  negotiations  which  he  carried  on  through  me 
with  the  State  Department  and  the  Foreign  Trade  Ad- 
viser, succeeded  in  obtaining  English  recognition  that 
cotton  should  not  be  regarded  as  contraband  of  war. 
Even  after  this  recognition,  England  made  the  export  of 
cotton  practically  impossible  by  intimidating  the  cotton 
exporters  in  every  possible  way,  among  others  by  spread- 
ing the  rumor  that  the  ships  would  be  captured  never- 
theless, and  by  prohibiting  English  insurance  companies 
from  underwriting  such  cargoes.  Here  Herr  Albert  in- 
tervened by  effecting  the  insurance  through  German 
insurance  companies,  and  proved  by  the  loading  and  arm- 
ing of  cotton  ships,  e.g.,  the  American  ship  Carolyn,  that 
the  threat  of  capture  was  not  to  be  taken  seriously  but 
was  simply  an  attempt  at  intimidation  on  the  part  of  the 
English.  In  this  way,  confidence  was  so  far  restored  that 
in  the  autumn  of  1914  and  the  beginning  of  1915  a  large 
number  of  other  firms  joined  in  the  business.  When, 
later,  cotton  was  made  unconditional  contraband  of  war, 
Herr  Albert  made  attempts  to  fit  out  blockade  runners 
— which  ended  with  the  arrival  at  a  German  port  of  the 
Eir  with  10,000  bales  of  cotton. 

The  various  attempts  to  export  copper,  rubber  and 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  87 

other  raw  materials  which,  were  unconditional  contra- 
band, apart  from  the  cases  already  mentioned  of  wool 
and  cotton,  proved  impossible,  in  spite  of  repeated,  ex- 
tensive and  very  cautions  preparation.  A  very  ambitious 
scheme  of  this  kind  with  the  S.S.  Atlantic  had  to  be 
abandoned  at  the  last  moment  owing  to  difficulties  with 
the  port  authorities. 

All  these  enterprises,  the  purchase,  sale  and  shipment 
of  foodstuffs  and  raw  material,  the  chartering,  buying 
and  selling  of  ships,  the  founding  of  shipping  lines,  new 
companies,  etc.,  as  well  as  the  financial  business  had  their 
political  as  well  as  their  purely  business  side.  They  were 
either  intended  to  serve  as  precedents  in  the  definite 
phases  of  development  of  international  maritime  law  or 
to  exert  influence  on  American  public  opinion  from  an 
economic  point  of  view. 

When  the  result  of  these  shipping  enterprises  is 
weighed  after  the  event,  it  will  be  seen  that  they  did  not 
play  a  decisive  part  in  the  supply  of  Germany  with  food- 
stuffs and  raw  material.  Germany  would  during  the  first 
year  of  war  have  managed  to  get  along  even  without  the 
few  hundred  thousand  tons  which  in  this  way  were 
brought  in  via  neutral  countries.  Nevertheless,  in  con- 
junction with  the  imports  from  neutral  countries,  they 
several  times  served  to  relieve  the  situation.  Very  im- 
portant in  this  respect  was  the  successful  struggle  for 
the  free  import  of  cotton  at  the  end  of  1914  and  the  be- 
ginning of  1915,  quite  apart  from  our  own  shipments. 
Without  this  we  should  have  come  to  an  end  of  our  sup- 
plies considerably  earlier. 

The  question  of  war  and  marine  insurance  very  soon 
called  for  particular  attention  to  the  interests  of  our  own 
shipping.  The  American  insurance  market  was  domi- 
nated by  the  English  companies.  The  latter  not  only 
conducted  about  two-thirds  of  the  whole  insurance  busi- 


88         MY   THREE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

ness  of  the  country,  but  also  exerted  a  decisive  influence 
on  the  American  companies.  In  addition  to  this,  they 
held  an  authoritative  position  as  holding  a  share  of  the 
capital.  England  very  soon  gave  instructions  that  Eng- 
lish insurance  companies  should  not  participate  in  any 
business  in  which  German  interests  were  in  any  way  in- 
volved. Consequently  in  making  shipments  to  neutral 
countries,  we  were  faced  with  great  difficulties,  for  the 
power  of  the  German  insurance  companies  and  the  few 
American  companies  that  were  independent  of  England 
did  not  suffice. 

The  two  most  important  German  companies  with 
branches  in  New  York,  the  Norddeutsche  Versicherungs- 
gesellschaft  and  the  MannTieimer  Versicherungsgesell- 
schaft,  which  was  excellently,  actively,  and  very  loyally 
represented  in  New  York  by  the  firm  F.  Hermann  &  Co., 
at  first  offered  an  insurance  limit  of  about  75,000  dol- 
lars, that  is  150,000  dollars  together,  which  in  any  case 
was  insufficient.  At  first  they  had  no  authority  to  under- 
take war  insurance. 

The  economic  importance  of  the  insurance  question  is 
obvious  on  the  face  of  it.  No  marine  insurance  was  pos- 
sible without  war  insurance.  In  particular  the  American 
Government  bureau  for  war  insurance  made  the  cover- 
ing of  the  marine  insurance  an  essential  condition.  This 
example  was  followed  by  all  the  American  insurance 
companies.  A  satisfactory  settlement  of  the  insurance 
— both  war  and  marine — on  the  other  hand  was  a  neces- 
sary condition  for  the  financing  of  the  shipments.  The 
shippers  only  obtained  credit  from  the  bank  on  handing 
over  the  insurance  policies.  In  addition  to  this  it  came 
about  later  that  the  few  American  shipping  lines  which 
remained  independent  of  England,  and  so  were  on  the 
black  list,  were  no  longer  in  a  position  to  cover  the  "Hull 
Insurance, "  i.e.,  the  insurance  of  the  ship  herself,  and 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  89 

therefore  the  solution  of  the  insurance  question  became 
a  necessary  condition  for  obtaining  freight  space.  Here 
too,  then,  it  was  to  our  interest  to  come  to  the  rescue, 
because  otherwise  the  lines  in  question  would  have  been 
forced  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  English 
firms,  which  would  have  placed  their  tonnage  at  the  serv- 
ice of  our  enemies. 

To  begin  with,  Herr  Albert  himself  undertook  the  in- 
surance in  cases  of  exceptional  importance.  It  was  at 
most  a  question  of  a  small  balance,  by  the  furnishing  of 
which  an  immediate  risk  or  a  dangerous  delay  in  ship- 
ment was  avoided.  Our  chief  efforts  were  directed 
towards  raising  the  insurance  limit  of  the  German  com- 
panies. As  a  result  a  pool  of  German  insurance  com- 
panies was  formed  whose  limit  for  marine  and  war 
insurance  was  gradually  raised  more  and  more.  In  this 
way  it  was  possible  to  carry  through  a  number  of  ship- 
ments to  European  countries,  to  keep  a  not  inconsider- 
able tonnage — about  30,000  tons — out  of  the  hands  of  the 
Allies,  as  well  as  to  enable  a  number  of  important  Ger- 
man firms  in  South  America  to  carry  on  extensive  trade 
between  North  and  South  America,  and  so  to  maintain 
their  business  activity  in  spite  of  the  measures  adopted 
by  the  English. 

About  our  propaganda  I  have  already  spoken  in  detail 
in  the  second  chapter.  It  may  be  mentioned  again  here 
that  the  centre  of  gravity  of  our  active  propaganda  lay 
in  the  economic  question,  which  was  to  a  certain  extent 
the  key  to  the  understanding  of  our  American  policy 
during  the  war. 

Though  the  vast  and  rapid  development  of  American 
export  trade  through  the  trade  in  war  material,  and  the 
change  in  position  from  debtor  to  creditor,  was  only 
effected  gradually,  and  the  loss  of  the  German  market 
at  first  made  itself  adversely  felt  both  actively  and  pas- 


90         MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

sively,  the  size  of  the  contracts  from  the  Allies  and  the 
consequent  profits  at  once  acted  like  a  narcotic  on  public 
opinion.  This  was  all  the  more  the  case  as  a  result  of 
the  extraordinarily  skilful  way  in  which  the  English 
handled  the  question.  They  always  proceeded  cautiously 
and  gradually.  For  instance,  they  at  first  accepted  the 
Declaration  of  London  in  principle,  but  made  several 
alterations  which  to  the  public,  who  did  not  realize  the 
extent  of  their  effect,  seemed  unimportant  and  which  yet 
formed  the  basis  for  the  gradual  throwing  overboard 
of  the  Declaration  of  London.  After  public  opinion  had 
grown  accustomed  to  the  English  encroachments  and  the 
interests  affected  had  been  pacified  by  the  Allied  con- 
tracts, the  blockade  was  introduced  after  careful  prep- 
aration in  the  Press;  it  was  not  at  first  described  as  a 
blockade,  but  was  gradually  and  systematically  tightened. 
Among  other  things,  the  export  of  cotton  to  Germany 
was  expressly  agreed  to  at  the  end  of  1914,  but  was 
afterwards  hampered  in  practice  by  various  measures, 
as,  for  example,  the  holding  up  of  individual  ships,  and 
the  refusal  of  marine  insurance,  and  finally  brought  to  an 
end  by  the  declaration  of  cotton  as  unconditional  con- 
traband. It  is  characteristic  that  the  declaration  of  cot- 
ton as  unconditional  contraband  was  made  public  on  the 
very  day  on  which  the  whole  American  Press  was  in  a 
state  of  great  excitement  over  the  Arabic  case,  so  that 
this  comparatively  unimportant  incident  filled  the  front 
pages  and  leading  articles  of  the  newspapers,  while  the 
extremely  important  economic  measure  was  published  in 
a  place  where  it  would  hardly  be  noticed. 

We  made  vigorous  efforts  to  oppose  this  English  step. 
We  got  into  touch  with  the  importers  of  German  goods, 
who  formed  an  association  and  forwarded  a  protest  to 
Washington.  Without  attracting  attention,  we  gave  the 
association  the  assistance  of  a  firm  of  solicitors,  whose 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  91 

services  were  at  our  disposal,  as  legal  advisers.  Bela- 
tions  were  entered  into  with  the  cotton  interest,  which, 
through  the  political  pressure  of  the  Southern  States, 
exerted  great  influence  on  public  opinion  and  in  Congress. 
Various  projects  for  buying  cotton  on  a  large  scale  for 
Germany  were  considered,  discussed  with  the  cotton  in- 
terest and  tested  by  small  purchases.  In  the  same  way 
negotiations  were  entered  upon  with  the  great  meat  com- 
panies, the  copper  interest  and  others  by  systematic  ex- 
planation and  emphasis  of  the  interests  with  regard  to 
the  German  market.  The  result,  partly  for  the  reasons 
given,  partly  owing  to  the  political  development  of  the 
general  relations  between  Germany  and  the  United 
States,  was  small.  This,  however,  can  hardly  be  taken 
as  an  argument  against  the  expediency  of  the  steps  taken 
as  at  that  time.  No  one  could  foresee  the  later  develop- 
ment of  the  war  and  particularly  the  length  of  time  it 
was  going  to  last;  whereas  had  the  war  been  shorter 
there  is  no  doubt  that  these  measures  would  have  at- 
tained their  object. 

An  important  part  of  the  economic  propaganda  was 
the  institution  of  the  so-called  "  Issues, "  i.e.,  the  attempt 
by  carefully  construing  individual  incidents  to  make  clear 
to  public  opinion  the  fundamental  injustice  of  the  Eng- 
lish encroachments  and  their  far-reaching  consequences 
in  practice.  The  most  important  case  in  this  direction 
is  that  of  the  Wilhelmina.  According  to  the  prevailing 
principles  of  international  law,  foodstuffs  were  only  con- 
ditional contraband.  They  might  be  imported  into  Ger- 
many if  they  were  intended  for  the  exclusive  use  of  the 
civil  population.  As,  however,  England  succeeded  in 
restraining  the  exporters  from  any  attempt  to  consign 
foodstuffs  to  Germany,  especially  as  in  view  of  the  enor- 
mous supplies  that  were  being  forwarded  to  our  enemies 
they  had  little  interest  in  such  shipment,  the  question 


92          MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

never  reached  a  clear  issue.  Herr  Albert  therefore  in- 
duced an  American  firm  to  ship  foodstuffs  for  the  civil 
population  of  Germany  on  the  American  steamer  Wil- 
helmina,  bound  for  Hamburg,  by  himself  undertaking 
the  whole  risk  from  behind  the  scenes.  This  was  arranged 
in  such  a  way  as  to  preserve  in  appearance  the  good  faith 
of  the  American  firm,  and  to  make  the  shipment  seem 
purely  American  in  the  eyes  of  the  American  Govern- 
ment and  the  English. 

The  WUkelmina  was  taken  by  the  English  into  Fal- 
mouth  and  detained  on  the  grounds  that  Hamburg  was 
a  fortified  town,  and  that,  according  to  the  measures 
adopted  by  Germany  for  supplying  the  civil  population 
with  food — requisitioning,  centralization  of  distribution, 
etc. — there  was  no  longer  any  distinction  between  the 
supply  of  the  military  and  the  civil  population.  While 
the  negotiations  on  this  question  were  still  in  the  air, 
and  seemed  to  be  progressing  favorably  for  us,  Eng- 
land resorted  to  a  general  blockade.  Consequently  the 
case  lost  its  interest,  both  practical  and  as  a  question  of 
principle,  especially  as  England  declared  her  readiness 
to  pay  for  the  goods  at  Hamburg  prices.  As,  on  the  other 
hand,  insistence  on  the  purely  theoretical  claims  would 
give  rise  to  the  danger  that  the  English  or  American 
secret  service  might  in  the  end  succeed  in  proving  the 
German  origin  of  the  undertaking,  Herr  Albert  accepted 
the  proffered  payment  of  the  English  Government,  and 
received  as  compensation  a  sum  which  covered  all  the 
expenses.  • 

Such  incidents  could  have  been  construed  in  several 
ways.  One  of  the  most  important,  and  also  the  most 
popular,  was  the  shipment  of  cotton  to  Germany  for  the 
civilian  population  between  the  autumn  of  1915  and  the 
middle  of  1916.  The  declaration  of  cotton  as  absolute 
contraband  was  at  first  only  on  paper,  as  no  American 


ECONOMIC  QUESTIONS  93 

exporters  had  hitherto  ventured  to  ship  cotton.  Conse- 
quently, detailed  discussions  took  place  as  to  whether 
such  an  undertaking  should  be  entered  upon  in  the  full 
light  of  publicity.  Great  excitement  among  the  cotton 
growers  proved  the  extremely  keen  and  widespread  in- 
terest. England  would  have  been  forced  to  act  on  her 
declaration  at  a  time  when  the  American  Government 
could  not  afford  to  ignore  the  interests  of  the  cotton 
industry,  with  its  influence  on  domestic  politics.  The 
full  effect  of  the  meagreness  of  the  crops,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  increase  of  consumption  in  the  United 
States,  and  consequent  rise  in  price,  was  not  yet  realized 
by  the  public,  nor  even  in  cotton  circles.  The  cotton 
industry  viewed  with  anxiety  the  increased  difficulty  of 
finding  a  market,  and  were  anxious  for  a  reopening  of 
that  of  the  Central  Powers. 

Certainly  a  shipment  of  cotton  to  Germany  would  only 
have  been  justified  in  conjunction  with  comprehensive 
other  measures,  particularly  purchases  on  the  American 
cotton  market  on  German  account.  As  a  result  of  detailed 
discussion  with  American  interested  parties,  who  repeat- 
edly urged  us  to  such  a  step,  we  forwarded  proposals  to 
Berlin  on  these  lines.  Their  general  purport  was  that 
about  a  million  bales  of  cotton  should  be  bought  outright 
on  behalf  of  Germany,  and  that  in  addition  options  should 
be  secured  on  a  further  million  or  two  million  bales  on 
the  understanding  that  the  taking  up  of  the  options  should 
be  dependent  on  the  possibility  of  shipment  to  Germany. 
On  the  strength  of  these  measures  the  shipment  of  one 
big  consignment  should  have  been  undertaken.  The  plan 
had  sound  prospects  of  success.  In  any  case  there  would 
have  been  no  risk  worth  mentioning,  as,  to  the  initiated, 
there  was  no  doubt  as  to  the  rise  of  prices.  In  view  of 
the  new  bank  legislation  (Federal  Reserve  Act),  no  in- 
superable difficulties  would  have  stood  in  the  way  of 


94         MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

financing  the  shipment.  The  indirect  political  pressure 
on  the  American  Government  and  pnblic  opinion,  with 
its  reaction  on  England,  would  have  been  considerable. 

Unfortunately  the  plan  was  frustrated  by  the  taking 
up  of  the  matter  in  America  direct  from  Germany,  with- 
out regard  to  the  shipment  difficulty,  without  going  into 
the  question  of  the  options  and  without  knowledge  of  the 
political  or  economic  situation.  Bremen  actually  placed 
a  contract  in  New  York  for  one  million  bales  to  be  de- 
livered in  Bremen  at  a  fixed  price.  It  was,  however, 
clear  from  the  first  to  anyone  acquainted  with  the  cir- 
cumstances that  such  a  step  was  bound  to  be  futile.  The 
whole  thing  turned  on  the  question  of  shipping.  The 
American  Press,  again  under  English  influence,  at  once 
pointed  the  finger  of  scorn,  saying  that  the  contract  was 
not  meant  seriously,  but  was  merely  a  piece  of  bluff  for 
purposes  of  German  propaganda. 

After  this  had  brought  about  the  collapse  of  the  more 
ambitious  plan,  the  shipment  of  a  single  cargo  still  con- 
tinued to  be  discussed  and  detailed  preparations  were 
made.  The  idea  had,  however,  to  be  abandoned,  because 
the  difficulties  of  passing  off  the  shipment  as  a  purely 
American  enterprise  were  practically  insuperable  with- 
out the  background  of  great  economic  measures,  which 
placed  the  cost  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  chances 
of  success.  The  whole  cost,  as  in  the  "Withelmina  case" 
would  have  to  be  guaranteed  from  Germany,  and  would 
of  course  have  been  lost  if  the  English  secret  service 
succeeded  in  establishing  the  German  connection. 

The  propaganda  for  preventing  and  hampering  the 
supply  of  war  material  to  our  enemies  turned  at  first  on 
the  question  of  principle  whether  such  supplies  were  rec- 
oncilable with  neutrality.  The  attempt  was  made — as  has 
been  briefly  mentioned  already — with  the  special  support 
of  the  German-American  circles,  to  impress  upon  the 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  95 

American  people  the  immorality  and  essentially  unneu- 
tral  nature  of  the  supplies,  especially  in  view  of  the  vast 
scale  they  were  assuming.  It  is  well  known  that  these 
attempts,  which  extended  to  a  strictly  legal  exertion  of 
influence  on  Congress,  failed.  The  lack  of  unity  and 
limited  political  experience  of  the  German-Americans 
contributed  to  this  result,  but  the  economic  interest  of 
the  nation  in  the  supplies,  in  which  the  whole  American 
Administration  and  industry  were  finally  concerned, 
formed  the  decisive  factor. 

Attempts  too  were  very  soon  made  to  hamper  the  sup- 
plies in  a  practical  way.  In  August,  1914,  it  might  per- 
haps have  been  possible  to  buy  up  the  Bethlehem  Steel 
Works,  if  the  outlay  of  the  necessary  capital  had  been 
promptly  decided  upon.  At  that  time  the  Americans 
themselves  did  not  foresee  what  a  gigantic  proportion 
these  supplies  were  to  assume.  The  purchase  of  these 
works  would  have  deprived  the  whole  munition  industry 
of  its  main  support.  Similar  proposals  have  repeatedly 
been  worked  out  by  us,  as,  for  example,  the  proposal  to 
amalgamate  the  whole  shrapnel  industry  of  the  United 
States.  The  fear,  well  grounded  in  itself,  that  such  an 
arrangement  was  scarcely  within  the  bounds  of  practical 
politics  and  could  have  been  got  round,  could  be  ignored. 
In  case  of  disputes  as  to  the  validity  of  such  a  step  we 
should  have  gained  more  by  the  publicity  than  we  stood 
to  lose.  At  that  time,  however,  the  Berlin  Government 
took  up  a  negative  attitude,  and  did  not  interest  itself 
in  the  question  until  the  beginning  of  1915,  when  the  vast 
supplies  of  material  from  America  began  to  make  them- 
selves felt  and  the  concentration  of  German  industry  on 
the  production  of  munitions  was  not  yet  complete.  The 
Military  Attache  received  instructions  to  do  everything 
possible  to  hamper  the  fulfilment  of  the  great  outstand- 
ing French  and  Russian  contracts  for  shrapnel,  which 


96         MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

was  at  that  time  still  the  chief  shell  used  by  the  Allies. 
This  was  done  successfully,  if  on  a  small  scale,  by  found- 
ing an  undertaking  of  our  own,  called  the  Bridgeport 
Projectile  Company,  and  entering  into  contracts  to  es- 
tablish the  most  important  machinery  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  powder  and  shrapnel.  Through  this  company, 
which  originally  passed  as  entirely  American,  the  special 
machinery  required  for  the  manufacture  of  shrapnel  was 
bought  on  a  scale  which  seriously  affected  the  American 
output,  and  in  particular  hindered  the  acceptance  and 
carrying  through  of  further  contracts  from  the  Allies 
for  a  considerable  time.  Herr  Albert  assisted  and  ad- 
vised the  Military  Attache  in  making  these  contracts, 
arranged  the  financing  of  the  enterprise  later  on,  and 
worked  at  its  development  after  Herr  von  Papen's  de- 
parture. 

Still  more  successful  were  the  efforts  to  remove  from 
the  market  the  surplus  benzol,  which  is  the  raw  product 
for  the  production  of  picric  acid.  The  benzol  was  bought 
up  by  a  company  specially  formed  for  the  purpose,  who 
sent  it  to  a  chemical  works  under  German  management 
to  be  manufactured  into  salicylic  preparations.  These 
products  were  sold  for  the  most  part  for  the  American 
market,  and  also,  with  the  approval  of  the  Ministry  for 
War,  exported  to  neutral  countries.  The  undertaking 
was  eventually  closed  down  after  making  considerable 
profits  for  the  Imperial  Treasury.  In  the  same  way,  for 
some  time,  all  the  bromine  coming  on  to  the  market,  the 
products  of  which  were  used  to  manufacture  and  increase 
the  density  of  gas,  were  bought  up. 

To  these  efforts  to  hamper  and  delay  the  supply  of 
war  material  belonged  also  the  much-discussed  agree- 
ment with  the  Bosch  Magneto  Company,  the  American 
branch  of  the  Stuttgart  firm.  The  substance  of  the  ar- 
rangement was  that  this  company,  which  was  under  Ger- 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  97 

man  direction,  should  not  immediately  refuse  Allied 
contracts  for  fuses,  but  should  appear  to  accept  them 
and  delay  their  fulfilment,  and,  to  complete  the  decep- 
tion, even  occasionally  deliver  small  quantities,  and  final- 
ly, at  the  last  moment,  refuse  to  complete  the  contract. 
This  procedure  was  attacked  at  the  time  by  a  German- 
American  journalist,  von  Skal.  On  the  strength  of  short 
notices  which  Herr  von  Skal  published  in  the  German 
PresSj  in  ignorance  of  the  real  state  of  the  case,  public 
opinion  in  Germany  turned  against  the  parent  firm,  the 
Bosch  works  in  Stuttgart.  The  question  then  became  the 
subject  of  my  reports,  and  was  submitted  to  an  inquiry 
by  the  home  authorities  and  the  courts.  I  still  hold  to 
my  opinion  that  the  whole  affair  was  unnecessarily  ex- 
aggerated by  German  public  opinion,  and  that  the  de- 
tailed investigation  into  its  legality  by  the  home  author- 
ities and  courts  was  unnecessary,  as  the  managing 
director  of  the  American  branch  and  the  directors  of  the 
German  company  had  acted  in  perfect  good  faith  in  an 
attempt  to  advance  the  interests  of  the  German  cause. 
It  was  merely  a  question  of  the  result.  If  their  policy 
of  procrastination  had  succeeded  in  delaying  the  con- 
tracts and  had  kept  our  enemies  for  a  considerable  time 
from  building  their  own  factory  for  fuses  and  aeroplane 
magnetoes,  their  action  would  have  been  justified ;  in  the 
contrary  event  it  would  have  been  vain,  but  blameless 
from  a  moral  and  legal  point  of  view.  The  fact  that  at 
the  beginning  the  English  relied  on  the  possibility  of  the 
production  and  supply  of  such  fuses  from  America,  and 
only  later  gradually  came  to  a  decision  to  build  and  fit 
out  their  own  factories,  consequently  under  much  more 
difficult  circumstances,  offered,  an  opening  for  this  pro- 
cedure. That  difficulties  were  caused  to  the  enemy  in 
this  respect  until  quite  recently  is  unmistakably  shown 
by  the  messages  that  reached  America  from  England. 


98          MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

As  a  result  of  the  extensive  purchases  of  the  Allies, 
there  came  about  a  gradual  change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
American  Government  to  the  question  of  issuing  loans. 
At  the  end  of  March,  1915,  we  succeeded,  acting  on  in- 
structions from  Berlin,  in  raising  a  small  loan.  It  in- 
volved an  unusual  amount  of  trouble.  The  American 
financial  world  was  already  completely  dominated  by  the 
Morgan  trust.  This  domination  resulted  from  the  fact 
that  the  Allied  commissions  were  concentrated  in  English 
hands  and  were  placed  by  England  in  the  hands  of  J.  P. 
Morgan  &  Co.,  who  acted  as  the  agents  of  the  English 
Government.  As  these  commissions  finally  included 
every  sphere  of  economic  life,  all  the  great  American 
banks  and  bankers  were  called  upon,  and  so  drawn  into 
the  Morgan  circle.  The  result  was  that  no  big  firm  could 
be  induced  to  undertake  a  German  loan.  However,  sev- 
eral trust  companies  of  repute,  who  already  had  or 
wished  to  have  business  relations  with  Germany,  de- 
clared their  readiness  to  become  partners  in  a  syndicate 
if  we  succeeded  in  finding  a  "Syndicate  Manager."  A 
certain  New  York  firm  which  afterwards  made  a  name 
for  itself,  but  at  that  time  was  comparatively  unknown, 
seemed  suited  for  this  position.  When  all  the  prepara- 
tions and  preliminary  agreements  had  been  carried 
through,  the  trust  companies,  under  the  pressure  of  the 
Morgan  influence,  declared  that  their  names  must  not  be 
associated  with  the  syndicate.  Meanwhile  the  matter 
had  gone  so  far  that  withdrawal  would  have  meant  a 
moral  surrender  which  would  have  been  dangerous  for 
our  credit.  Consequently,  we  had  to  make  up  our  minds 
to  negotiate  the  loan  under  the  signature  of  this  one  firm, 
which  was  naturally  undesirable  for  the  general  interest. 

Looking  back,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  we  should  have 
done  better  not  to  consider  a  loan  in  the  United  States, 
but  to  remit  the  necessary  funds  from  Berlin.  This  had 


ECONOMIC   QUESTIONS  99 

to  be  done  later  to  redeem  the  loan,  and  at  a  time  when 
the  rate  of  exchange  was  much  more  unfavorable.  When 
the  loan  was  raised  we  had  certainly  no  idea  that  it  would 
have  to  be  redeemed  during  the  war,  as  we  had  reckoned 
on  a  shorter  duration  of  hostilities.  On  the  other  hand 
there  is  no  truth  in  the  statement  that  this  loan  in  some 
way  cleared  the  way  for  further  Allied  loans.  These 
loans,  which  were  the  natural  result  of  the  great  supplies 
of  material  to  the  Allies,  would  have  come  in  any  case. 
We  did,  however,  deprive  ourselves  by  this  loan  of  an 
argument  to  prove  the  defective  neutrality  of  the  United 
States. 

In  1916  we  succeeded  in  getting  hold  of  some  five  mil- 
lions in  Treasury  notes  without  formal  loan  negotiations. 

Another  economic  question  which  occupied  my  atten- 
tion was  connected  with  the  export  of  German  dye-stuffs 
to  the  United  States.  In  Berlin  it  was  held  that  German 
dye-stuffs  should  be  withheld  from  the  United  States  as 
a  lever  for  inducing  them  to  protest  against  the  English 
blockade,  and  possibly  have  it  raised.  The  same  point 
of  view  was  adopted  with  regard  to  other  goods  which 
were  necessities  for  the  United  States,  as,  for  example, 
potassic  salt,  sugar  beetroot  seed  and  other  commodities. 
A  change  of  view  did  not  occur  until  the  spring  of  1916 
at  my  suggestion.  It  is  my  belief  that  the  withholding 
of  these  goods  proved  a  serious  mistake.  The  political 
aim  of  bringing  pressure  to  bear  on  England  with  a  view 
to  the  raising  of  the  blockade  was  not  realized.  The 
American  industry  partly  got  over  the  difficulty  by  ob- 
taining dye-stuffs  in  other  ways — importation  of  Ger- 
man dyes  from  China,  where  they  had  been  systemati- 
cally bought,  smuggling  of  German  dyes  via  neutral  coun- 
tries, importation  of  Swiss  dyes,  introduction  of  natural 


100       MY  THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

dyes  and  dye-substitutes — but  more  especially  by  the 
foundation  of  a  dye  industry  of  their  own.  In  the  case 
of  potash,  they  had  simply  to  do  with  what  little  they 
could  get;  which  was  all  the  easier  as  the  American 
manure  manufacturers  and  dealers  had  already  in  their 
own  interests  begun  a  systematic  propaganda  to  prove 
that  potash  was  not  indispensable,  but  could  be  replaced 
by  their  own  products.  It  might  be  observed  as  a  gen- 
eralization that  ultimately  no  individual  product  has 
proved  to  be  really  indispensable.  The  result  of  holding 
back  our  exports  was  therefore  simply — apart  from  a 
quite  unnecessary  straining  of  political  relations,  since 
England  succeeded  in  diverting  all  the  odium  on  to  us — 
a  scarcity  of  important  German  commodities  in  the 
United  States  and  the  substitution  of  their  own  pro- 
duction. 

In  negotiating  the  German  loan,  the  chief  difficulty  was 
that  grasping  speculators  got  hold  of  the  market,  dis- 
credited the  war  loan  by  underbidding  one  another  and 
in  part  by  direct  dishonorable  dealing,  and  also  that 
owing  to  the  impossibility  of  producing  ready  money, 
interest  in  the  war  loan  flagged.  Early  on  I  suggested 
the  issue  of  bills  ad  interim.  The  scheme,  however,  failed, 
because  the  representative  of  the  Deutsche  Bank  opposed 
it,  and  because  the  natural  opposition  of  two  great  insti- 
tutions, who  were  making  a  profitable  business  out  of 
the  sale  of  war  loans  and  the  speculations  on  the  value 
of  the  mark,  which  were  closely  connected  with  it,  could 
not  be  overcome.  I  am  still  of  the  opinion  that  with 
well-timed  organization  the  sum  raised  by  the  war  loan 
could  have  been  increased  by  several  millions. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  SO-CALLED   GERMAN  CONSPIRACIES 

IMMEDIATELY  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  our  cruisers  in 
foreign  waters  were  cnt  off  from  their  base  of  opera- 
tions, and  the  German  Reservists  in  North  and  South 
America  were  prevented  from  returning  home  owing  to 
the  British  Command  of  the  Sea.  Measures  to  assist 
them  were  therefore  taken  by  the  German  Nationals  and 
German  Americans  in  the  United  States,  which  although 
not  in  themselves  aimed  at  the  Union,  certainly  trans- 
gressed its  laws.  Moreover  during  the  year  1915  and 
succeeding  years,  several  deeds  of  violence  against  the 
enemies  of  Germany,  or  preparations  for  such  deeds, 
were  discovered,  involving  more  or  less  serious  offences 
against  the  laws  of  America.  Both  kinds  of  activity, 
comprised  under  the  suggestive  term  "German  Conspir- 
acies "  or  " German  Plots  against  American  Neutrality/' 
were  skilfully  used  by  our  enemies  to  discredit  us,  and 
these  agitations  did  considerable  harm  to  the  German 
cause,  besides  being  a  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  my 
policy. 

Among  the  measures  for  assisting  the  German  fleet  may 
be  mentioned,  in  the  first  place,  the  case  of  the  Hamburg- 
Amerika  Line,  which  has  already  been  noticed.  The  New 
York  branch,  acting  in  accordance  with  the  instructions 
of  their  head  offices  in  Hamburg,  dispatched  about  a 
dozen  chartered  vessels,  laden  with  coal  and  provisions, 
to  the  squadron  of  German  cruisers  and  auxiliary  cruis- 
ers then  on  the  high  seas.  This  cargo  was  declared  in 

101 


102       MY  THEEE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

the  ships'  clearing  papers  to  be  consigned  to  ports  be- 
yond the  area  of  open  sea  where  the  German  cruisers 
were  known  to  be.  When  it  came  out  later  that  the  New 
York  branch  of  the  Hamburg- Amerika  Line  had  made 
use  of  this  device  for  coaling  German  men-of-war,  the 
chief  officials  were  brought  up  on  the  charge  of  deliber- 
ately making  false  declarations  in  their  clearing  papers, 
and  their  chief,  Dr.  Biinz,  a  man  of  the  highest  character, 
with  three  of  his  subordinates,  was  condemned,  in  De- 
cember, 1915,  to  eighteen  months'  imprisonment  in  the 
first  instance. 

The  severity  of  the  penalty  thus  inflicted  on  a  man  so 
universally  respected,  who  had,  during  his  long  tenure  of 
the  office  of  Consul-General  in  Chicago  and  New  York, 
gained  the  warm  affection  of  many  Americans,  was  re- 
garded merely  as  a  manifestatoin  for  the  benefit  of  the 
outside  world  of  the  American  Government's  intention 
to  preserve  a  strict  neutrality.  No  one  supposed  that  the 
aged  Dr.  Biinz  would  really  have  to  undergo  his  sentence, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  remained  at  liberty  for  some 
time  even  after  America's  declaration  of  war.  In  the 
summer  of  1917  a  violent  press-campaign  broke  out 
against  him,  whereupon,  despite  his  ill  health,  he  offered 
of  his  own  accord  to  serve  his  sentence  and  was  removed 
to  the  State  prison  at  Atlanta,  where  he  died  in  1918. 
All  honor  to  his  memory! 

Considering  that  his  offence  was  nothing  more  than  a 
technical  violation  of  the  letter  of  the  American  Cus- 
toms regulations  and  was  actuated  by  no  base  motive, 
nor  by  hostility  to  the  United  States,  the  punishment  in- 
flicted was  excessively  harsh.  It  was  pleaded  on  his  be- 
half in  the  speech  for  the  defence  that  America  during 
the  war  against  Spain  had  acted  in  exactly  the  same  way, 
when  ships  were  dispatched  from  the  neutral  harbor  of 
Kong  to  coal  Admiral  Dewey's  fleet  before  Manila 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  103 

and  their  cargo  was  declared  as  being  scrap-iron  con- 
signed to  Macao.  An  indication  of  the  state  of  public 
opinion  in  the  Eastern  States  of  America  at  the  end  of 
1915  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  heavy  sentence 
on  this  "German  Conspirator"  met  with  general  ap- 
proval apart  from  a  few  emphatic  protests  on  the  part 
of  the  German-American  papers. 

A  number  of  German  Reserve  officers  domiciled  in 
America  succeeded,  despite  the  close  watch  maintained 
by  England  on  the  seas,  in  effecting  their  return  to  the 
Fatherland,  thanks  to  a  secret  bureau  in  New  York,  or- 
ganized by  German-Americans,  which  provided  them 
with  false  or  forged  American  passports.  This  bu- 
reau was  closed  by  the  American  police  consequent  on 
the  discovery  in  January,  1915,  of  four  German  Reserv- 
ists, with  such  papers  in  their  possession,  on  board  a 
Norwegian  ship  in  New  York  harbor.  The  organizer 
had  apparently  fled  from  New  York  some  time  before, 
but  finally  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  British,  and  was 
drowned  in  a  torpedoed  transport.  The  Reservists  were 
discharged  on  payment  of  heavy  fines.  One,  however,  was 
sentenced  to  three  years '  penal  servitude.  In  estimating 
this  affair,  it  must  be  remembered  that  according  to  the 
recognized  conventions  of  international  law,  British  men- 
of-war  were  not  justified  in  making  prisoners  of  individ- 
ual unarmed  Germans  returning  to  their  homes  in  neutral 
vessels.  The  American  Government  itself  explicitly  af- 
firmed as  much  when  a  ship  flying  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
was  held  up  in  mid-ocean  for  examination.  As  a  rule, 
however,  neutral  Powers  were  too  weak  to  stand  up  for 
their  rights  against  British  violations  of  international 
law,  and  so  all  Germans  who  were  discovered  by  the 
British  on  their  homeward  voyage  were  made  prisoners 
of  war.  Our  countrymen,  therefore,  if  they  wished  to 
do  their  duty  by  going  to  the  defence  of  their  Father- 


104        MY   THREE  YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

land,  were  compelled,  in  face  of  this  flagrant  violation 
of  the  Law  of  Nations,  to  provide  themselves  with  false 
passports.  They  had  thus  to  choose  between  two  con- 
flicting duties,  a  dilemma  all  too  common  in  life,  and  one 
which  the  individual  must  solve  according  to  his  lights. 
The  bearers  of  such  false  passports  certainly  risked 
heavy  penalties,  but  shrank  still  more  from  incurring  any 
suspicion  of  skulking  or  cowardice. 

It  would  seem,  moreover,  that  there  is  little  to  choose, 
from  the  moral  point  of  view,  between  their  "  sailing 
under  false  flags,"  for  the  purpose  of  evading  the  Brit- 
ish guardians  of  the  sea,  and  the  hoisting  of  neutral 
ensigns  by  British  ships  to  escape  from  German  subma- 
rines. 

There  can,  at  all  events,  be  no  question  of  a  "German 
conspiracy"  in  these  cases  of  forged  passports,  as  I  had 
officially  announced  on  behalf  of  the  German  Govern- 
ment, that  under  the  circumstances  no  one  who  remained 
in  America  would,  on  his  arrival  in  Germany,  be  pun- 
ished for  not  answering  the  call  to  the  Colors.  I  can 
repudiate  in  the  most  express  terms  any  personal  re- 
sponsibility for  the  activities  of  the  above-mentioned 
secret  bureau  in  New  York,  although  attempts  have  been 
made  to  connect  my  name  with  it  on  the  sole  ground  of  a 
letter,  said  to  have  been  written  to  me  by  von  "Wedell 
before  his  departure,  which  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  first 
made  known  to  me  by  its  publication  in  the  Press.  It  is 
true  that  this  gentleman,  a  New  York  barrister  before 
the  war,  was  a  personal  acquaintance  of  mine;  he  had, 
however,  immediately  after  the  outbreak  of  hostilities, 
hastened  back  to  Germany  to  join  his  own  regiment,  and 
later  returned  secretly  to  America,  presumably  under 
orders  from  his  superiors,  only  to  disappear  again  with 
equal  secrecy  after  a  short  stay.  I  had  never  even  heard 
the  name  of  Rueroede  before  his  arrest,  but  in  view  of 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  105 

his  denial  that  any  personal  profit  accrued  to  him  from 
his  services  in  providing  his  fellow-countrymen  with  doc- 
uments for  the  purpose  of  facilitating  their  escape  from 
British  vigilance,  I  much  regret  the  severity  of  the  pen- 
alty inflicted  on  him. 

If  the  cases  of  the  Hamburg- Amerika  Line  and  the  fal- 
sification of  the  passports  damaged  the  German  cause 
in  America,  this  was  still  more  true  of  the  acts  of  vio- 
lence planned  or  carried  out  by  Germans  or  German- 
Americans  against  individuals  known  to  be  hostile  to  our 
cause.  The  few  authentic  cases  of  this  sort  of  thing  were, 
as  every  impartial  person  must  recognize,  engineered  by 
a  few  patriotic  but  foolish  hotheads ;  the  more  sober  and 
responsible  German  elements  in  the  United  States  were 
certainly  no  party  to  them. 

To  the  list  of  these  outrages,  the  enemies  of  Germany 
deliberately  added  others  which  probably  had  no  foun- 
dation in  fact.  Thus,  for  every  accident  which  occurred 
in  any  American  munition  factory — and  many  accidents 
were  bound  to  happen  in  the  new  works  which  had  sprung 
up  like  mushrooms  all  over  the  land,  and  were  staffed 
with  absolutely  untrained  personnel — " German  agents" 
were  regularly  held  responsible,  and  the  anti-German 
Press,  particularly  the  Providence  Journal,  announced 
these  accidents  as  "a  clear  manifestation  of  the  notori- 
ous German  system  of  frightfulness."  Worse  still,  these 
papers  instilled  into  their  readers  the  firm  conviction 
that  these  crimes  were  an  essential  part  of  German  prop- 
aganda, and  in  their  cartoons  represented  the  German, 
more  particularly  the  German-American,  as  a  bearded 
anarchist  with  a  bomb  ready  in  his  hand. 

I  myself  was  frequently  libelled  in  this  manner  by  the 
"Yellow  Press,"  and  represented  both  by  pen  and  pencil 
as  the  ringleader  and  instigator  of  the  so-called  "con- 
spiracies"; this  accusation,  at  first  tentative,  later  grew 


106        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

increasingly  clear  and  unmistakable.  The  campaign  of 
calumny  in  which  even  the  more  respectable  Press  took 
its  share,  was,  however,  directed  more  particularly 
against  the  Military  Attache,  Captain  von  Papen,  and 
the  Naval  Attache,  Captain  Boy-Ed,  whose  names  were 
openly  coupled  with  some  of  the  crimes  which  came  be- 
fore the  American  Courts  of  Justice.  Both  these  officers 
finally  fell  victims  to  this  agitation,  and  had  to  be  recalled 
from  America  in  December,  1915,  in  accordance  with  a 
request  from  the  United  States  Government.  At  the  same 
time,  in  the  annual  Presidential  message  to  Congress, 
statutory  measures  were  laid  down  against  Americans 
implicated  in  these  conspiracies,  or,  as  the  phrase  ran, 
against  all  those  "  contriving  schemes  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  independence,  and  implicated  in  plots  against 
the  neutrality,  of  the  Government. "  Not  until  the  declar- 
ation of  war  against  Germany,  on  April  2nd,  1917,  did 
President  Wilson  venture  openly  to  accuse  the  official 
German  representatives  in  America  of  complicity  in  these 
designs,  in  the  following  words:  "It  is  unhappily  not  a 
matter  of  conjecture  but  a  fact  proved  in  our  courts  of 
justice,  that  the  intrigues  which  have  more  than  once 
come  'perilously  near  to  disturbing  the  peace  and  dislo- 
cating the  industries  of  the  country  have  been  carried 
on  at  the  instigation,  with  the  support,  and  even  under 
the  personal  direction  of  official  agents  of  the  Imperial 
Government  accredited  to  the  Government  of  the  United 
States."  Since  then  my  own  name  has  been  mentioned 
as  the  supreme  head  of  the  German  "Conspiracy"  in 
America,  in  the  innumerable  propaganda  pamphlets  with 
which  the  official  "Committee  of  Public  Information" 
has  flooded  America  and  Europe.  And  I  have  been 
openly  accused  of  having  instigated  and  furthered,  or  at 
the  very  least  been  privy  to,  all  manner  of  criminal 
activities.  In  interviews  with  American  journalists  I 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  107 

have  more  than  once  refuted  these  calumnies,  which  can 
be  supported  by  no  evidence,  and  were  solely  intended 
to  arouse  popular  feeling  against  Germany;  but  I  must 
now  refer  again  to  the  more  definite  of  these  accusations. 

It  must  be  left  to  the  impartial  historian  of  the  future 
to  establish  the  full  truth  concerning  the  German  con- 
spiracies in  the  United  States ;  any  evidence  given  under 
the  influence  of  the  passions  arising  out  of  the  war  can, 
of  course,  possess  only  a  limited  value.  It  is  obvious 
from  the  proceedings  concerning  the  constitution  of  the 
Senate  Committee  that  much  of  the  evidence  was  preju- 
diced and  unreliable,  probably  because  it  was  based 
solely  on  information  given  by  Germans  or  former  Ger- 
mans, whose  identities  were  kept  strictly  secret,  and  who 
told  deliberate  lies,  either  because,  like  Judas,  they  had 
received  a  reward  for  their  treachery,  or  because,  having 
severed  all  ties  with  their  old  country,  they  wished  to 
secure  their  footing  in  the  new. 

In  any  case  I  myself  was  never  a  partner  to  any 
proceedings  which  contravened  the  laws  of  the  United 
States.  I  never  instigated  such  proceedings,  nor  did  I 
consciously  afford  their  authors  assistance,  whether 
financially  or  otherwise.  I  was  in  no  single  instance 
privy  to  any  illegal  acts,  or  to  any  preparations  for  such 
acts.  Indeed,  as  a  rule  I  heard  of  them  first  through 
the  papers,  and  even  then  scarcely  believed  in  the  very 
existence  of  most  of  the  conspiracies  for  which  I  was 
afterwards  held  accountable.  I  shall  hardly  be  blamed 
for  this  by  anyone  who  remembered  the  number  of 
projects  which  we  were  all  duly  accused  of  entertaining, 
such  as  the  various  alleged  plans  for  the  invasion  of 
Canada  with  a  force  recruited  from  the  German- Ameri- 
can rifle  clubs,  and  many  another  wild-cat  scheme  attrib- 
uted to  us  in  the  first  months  of  the  war. 

Such  offences  against  the  laws  of  America  as  were 


108        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

actually  committed  were  certainly  reprobated  by  none 
more  sincerely  than  by  myself,  if  only  because  nothing 
could  be  imagined  more  certain  to  militate  against  my 
policy,  as  I  have  here  described  it,  than  these  outrages 
and  the  popular  indignation  aroused  by  them.  I  fully 
realized  that  these  individual  acts,  in  defiance  of  the 
law  of  the  land  and  the  resulting  spread  of  Germano- 
phobia,  were  bound  to  damage  me  in  the  eyes  of  the 
United  States  Government  and  public  opinion.  It  is 
thus  obviously  absurd  to  accuse  me  of  being  responsible 
in  any  way  for  the  acts  in  question,  seeing  that  any  such 
instigation,  or  even  approval  on  my  part,  would  have 
involved  the  utter  ruin  of  my  own  policy! 

Another  accusation  against  my  conduct  while  in 
America  is  that  I  at  all  events  connived  at  the  com- 
mission of  crimes  under  the  direction  of  officers  attached 
to  the  Embassy  of  which  I  was  in  charge,  or  of  other 
German  "Secret  Service  agents.  The  evidence  for  this 
consists  of  certain  cipher  telegrams  from  the  military 
authorities  in  Germany,  addressed  to  the  Embassy  in 
Washington;  these  were  decoded  in  England  and  said 
to  contain  instructions  for  outrages  to  be  committed  in 
Canadian  territory.  I  cannot  say  if  these  messages  were 
genuine  or  no.  Military  cipher  telegrams,  formally  ad- 
dressed to  the  military  attache,  were  frequently  received 
at  the  Embassy,  but  were  always  sent  forward  at  once 
by  the  registry  to  Captain  von  Papen's  office  in  New 
York,  as  a  matter  of  routine,  and  without  being  referred 
to  me  in  any  way.  Von  Papen  certainly  never  told  me  a 
word  about  any  instructions  from  his  superiors  that  he 
should  endeavor  to  foment  disorders  as  alleged.  For 
the  present,  then,  I  consider  that  there  is  insufficient 
evidence  for  his  having  received  any  such  orders;  but 
in  all  these  matters  I  can,  of  course,  speak  only  for  my- 
self, military  matters  being  entirely  out  of  my  province. 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  109 

Soon  after  von  Papen's  recall  I  entered  a  protest  against 
the  sending  of  a  successor,  as  there  was  no  longer  any 
useful  purpose  to  be  served  by  the  employment  of  a 
Military  Attache,  whose  presence  would  only  serve  as 
a  pretext  for  a  renewed  hostile  agitation  against  us. 

Whether  the  illegal  acts  of  the  Secret  Agents  sent  to 
the  United  States  by  the  military  authorities  were  com- 
mitted in  accordance  with  their  orders  or  on  their  own 
initiative  I  had  no  means  of  knowing  at  the  time,  nor 
have  I  been  able  to  discover  since  my  return  home.  I 
may  observe,  however,  that  I  more  than  once  urgently 
requested  the  Foreign  Office  to  use  all  their  influence 
against  the  dispatch  of  Secret  Service  men  to  America. 
Moreover,  I  had  published  in  the  Press  a  notice,  couched 
in  strong  terms  and  signed  by  myself,  warning  all  Ger- 
mans domiciled  in  the  United  States  not  to  involve 
themselves  in  any  illegal  activities  under  any  circum- 
stances whatever.  And  I  think  I  am  justified  in  saying 
that  twelve  months  before  the  severance  of  diplomatic 
relations,  I  had  made  a  clean  sweep  of  all "  conspiracies " 
and  extorted  a  promise  that  no  more  "agents"  should 
be  sent  over  from  Germany.  On  my  arrival  home,  I  was 
held  by  some  to  have  been  at  fault  for  not  having  put 
down  the  movement  earlier;  to  which  my  reply  must 
be  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  the  cases  of  Rintelen 
and  Fay  that  first  earned  us  the  reputation  of  "con- 
spirators"; all  the  rest  came  to  light  later,  and  were  in 
great  measure  connected  with  their  machinations.  I 
took  steps,  as  soon  as  I  heard  of  these  two  affairs,  to 
avoid  any  repetition  of  them,  in  which  effort  I  was 
successful. 

The  following  throws  some  light  on  the  attitude  of 
the  United  States  Government  towards  me  in  the  matter 
of  the  "conspiracies."  When  in  November,  1915,  the 
Press  campaign  had  reached  the  height  of  its  violence, 


110        MY  THREE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

I  forwarded  a  Note  to  Mr.  Lansing,  the  Secretary  of 
State,  protesting  strongly  against  the  unjustifiable  at- 
tacks aimed  at  myself  and  my  colleagues  of  the  Embassy 
and  requesting  that  some  effort  should  be  made  to  sup- 
press them,  as  follows: 

"Washington,  Nov.  16,  1915. 

"The  continuance  of  the  baseless  attacks  on  myself 
and  the  colleagues  of  my  Embassy  in  the  columns  of 
the  Providence  Journal  impels  me  to  ask  whether  your 
Excellency  cannot  see  your  way  to  make  it  clear  that 
these  attacks  are  not  countenanced  by  the  American 
Government.  Such  slanders  against  the  representatives 
of  a  friendly  Power  who  have  a  right  to  claim  the  pro- 
tection and  hospitality  of  the  United  States  authori- 
ties would  be  incomprehensible,  were  it  not  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge  that  the  Providence  Journal  is  a 
'hyphenated '  Anglo-American  paper.  To  borrow  the 
phrase  of  the  United  States  President,  this  journal  is 
obviously  a  greater  friend  of  other  countries  than  its 
own. 

"For  the  last  fifteen  months  I  and  all  my  colleagues 
have  had,  if  I  may  say  so,  a  whole  army  of  American 
private  detectives  on  our  track.  Day  and  night  they 
have  pursued  us  in  the  service  of  our  enemies.  Yet, 
although  official  German  documents  have  been  stolen, 
no  one  has  yet  succeeded  in  producing  a  single  proof 
of  illegal  activities  on  the  part  of  any  one  of  us. 

"I  should  esteem  it  a  great  favor  if  your  Excellency 
could  see  your  way  to  secure  this  Embassy  against  a 
repetition  of  these  baseless  attacks,  which  have  as  their 
sole  foundation  the  pre-supposition  of  conspiracies  which 
have  no  existence  in  fact." 

I  never  received  any  reply  to  this  letter,  bnt  a  short 
time  after  Mr.  Lansing  while  informing  me  that  the 


Ill 

American  Government  felt  itself  compelled  to  ask  for 
the  recall  of  Captains  Boy-Ed  and  von  Papen,  as  being 
no  longer  acceptable  to  them  (this  affair  I  propose  to 
refer  to  again  in  another  place),  stated  in  the  most  ex- 
plicit terms  that  I  was  in  no  way  implicated  in  the  matter. 
The  fact  that  the  American  Government,  even  after  the 
departure  of  the  two  attaches,  maintained  the  same  in- 
timate relations  with  me  throughout  the  fourteen  months 
which  elapsed  before  its  diplomatic  representatives  were 
recalled  from  Germany,  proves  that  this  was  no  empty 
compliment,  but  was  meant  in  all  sincerity. 

I  feel  myself  compelled  to  insist  on  these  facts,  in 
view  of  the  efforts  subsequently  made  to  represent  me 
as  the  originator  or  leader  of  the  famous  "conspiracies," 
which  were  later  immeasurably  exaggerated  by  Ameri- 
can propaganda.  This  propaganda  has  poisoned  the 
mind  of  the  average  American  citizen  to  such  an  extent 
that  he  firmly  believes  the  German  Embassy  to  have 
been  a  nest  of  anarchists,  who  even  during  the  period 
of  his  country's  neutrality  "waged  war"  in  the  most 
dastardly  manner  against  her. 

And  yet  these  stories  of  so-called  "conspiracies," 
with  their  legions  of  conspirators,  and  resulting  lengthy 
lists  of  German  outrages  in  America,  will  not  bear  seri- 
ous examination. 

Irrefutable  evidence  on  the  subject  can  be  found  in 
the  official  report  of  the  Senate  Committee  of  Inquiry 
into  the  activities  of  German  propaganda,  which  has  al- 
ready been  mentioned  more  than  once.  After  the  deposi- 
tions of  Mr.  Bruce  Bielaski  on  this  subject  had  gone  on 
for  two  days,  Senator  Nelson,  being  tired  of  this  dry 
recital — he  had  already  expressed  the  opinion  that  most 
of  the  evidence  given  so  far  was  too  academic — asked 
this  officer  of  the  Department  of  Justice  for  a  report 
on  the  German  attempts  "to  foment  strikes  and  cause 


112        MY  THREE   YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

explosions  in  munition  factories"  which  he  apparently 
considered  to  be  an  integral  part  of  German  propaganda. 
Mr.  Bielaski  then  referred  to  the  "more  important  cases 
of  offences  against  the  law,  which  had  been  fathered  by 
the  German  Government."  He  prefaced  his  statement 
with  the  remark  that  the  list  he  was  about  to  give  was 
complete  in  every  way;  twenty-four  cases  were  dealt 
with,  and  the  names  of  the  incriminated  individuals 
given,  as  reproduced  below: 

1.  Falsification  of  passports  (von  Wedell,  Rueroede). 

2.  Destruction  of  a  bridge  in  Canada  (Horn). 

3.  Falsification  of  passports  (Stegler,  Madden,  Cook). 

4.  Falsification  of  passports  (Liideritz). 

5.  Attempted  destruction  of  a  canal  in  Canada  (von 

der  Goltz,  Tauscher,  Fritzen). 

6.  Falsification  of  passports  (Sanders,  Wunmerburg, 

and  two  accomplices). 

7.  Supplying  of  coal,  etc.,  to  German  men-of-war  at 

sea  (Bunz,  Koeter,  Hofmeister,  Poppinghaus). 

8.  Attempt   to  bring  about   a  revolution  in   India 

(Bopp,  von  Schack,  von  Brinken,  Ram  Chandra, 
and  twenty-five  accomplices). 

9.  Attempt  to  blow  up  a  railway  tunnel  in  Canada 

(Bopp  and  three  accomplices). 

10.  Attempted  destruction  of  munition  factories  and 

railway  bridges  in  Canada  (Kaltschmidt,  and  five 
accomplices). 

11.  Plot  to  destroy  Allied  munition  ships  by  infernal 

machines   (Fay,  Scholtz,  Dacher  and  three  ac- 
complices). 

12.  Plot  to  destroy  Allied  munition  ships  by  incendiary 

bombs  (Scheele,  von  Kleist,  Wolpart,  Bode). 

13.  Attempt  to  foment  strikes  in  factories  engaged  in 

the  making  of  war  materials  (Rintelen,  Lamar, 
Martin). 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  113 

14.  Atteinpt  to  foment  strikes  among  the  dockers  (no 

convictions). 

15.  Sending  of  spies  to  Canada  (Konig). 

16.  Perjury  in  the   matter  of  the   arming   of  the 

Lusitania  (Stahl). 

17.  Attempt  to  smuggle  rubber  to  Germany  (Jaeger 

and  five  accomplices). 

18.  Attempt  to  smuggle  ashore  chronometer  of  an  in- 

terned German  ship  (Thierichens). 

19.  Attempt  to  smuggle  nickel  to  Germany  (Olsen  and 

two  accomplices). 

20.  Attempt  to  smuggle  rubber  to  Germany  (New- 

mann  and  accomplices). 

21.  Sinking  of  a  German  ship  at  the  entrance  of  an 

American   harbor    (Captain   and   crew    of   the 
Liebenfels). 

22.  Attempt  to  smuggle  rubber  to  Germany  (Soloman 

and  accomplices). 

23.  Falsification  of  passports  (Rintelen  and  Meloy). 

24.  Plan  to  destroy  Allied  army  horses  by  means  of 

bacteria  (Sternberg). 

The  above  is  the  substance  of  the  evidence  given  by 
Bielaski.  I  have  no  wish  to  extenuate,  in  the  slightest 
degree,  the  few  serious  offences  against  common  law 
included  in  this  list,  but  I  imagine  that  the  unprejudiced 
reader  will  not  fail  to  observe  that  Mr.  Bielaski  found 
it  necessary  to  rake  up  everything  possible  in  order  to  be 
able  to  present  the  Committee  with  a  respectable  cata- 
logue of  crimes  instigated  by  the  German  Government  in 
the  United  States.  Apparently  his  only  object  was  to 
produce  a  list  of  imposing  length,  and  for  this  purpose  he 
included  in  it  cases  in  which  it  would  be  difficult  for 
even  the  most  suspicious  mind  to  discover  the  hand  of 
the  German  Government.  Moreover  even  he  himself 


114        MY  THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

did  not  venture  directly  to  assert  the  complicity  of  the 
representatives  of  the  German  Empire  in  any  single  one 
of  these  offences.  In  reply  to  Senator  Overman,  who 
asked  if  Captains  von  Papen  and  Boy-Ed  were  held  to 
be  implicated  in  all  these  illegal  acts,  Mr.  Bielaski  gave 
the  following  evasive  answer:  "The  most  important, 
and  most  serious  of  these  illegal  acts,  were,  generally 
speaking,  inspired,  financed  and  conducted  by  one  or 
other  of  the  accredited  representatives  of  Germany." 
Officials  or  agents  in  the  service  of  Germany  were,  how- 
ever, mentioned  by  name  as  leaders  or  accomplices  only 
in  the  first  fourteen  and  the  two  last  cases,  and  I  may  be 
allowed  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  by  the  admission  of 
Mr.  Bielaski  himself,  my  own  name  was  coupled  only 
with  the  agitation  for  a  revolution  in  India,  which  was 
supposed  to  be  a  part  of  Germany's  designs.  Even  if 
we  take  Mr.  Bielaski 's  unconfirmed  evidence  as  being 
reliable,  the  total  number  of  individuals  convicted  on 
these  charges  in  the  American  Courts  of  Justice  amounts 
only  to  sixty-seven,  of  whom  apparently  only  sixteen 
were  German  nationals;  and  their  offences  fall  under 
the  following  heads:  the  case  of  the  Hamburg- Amerika 
Line  and  the  five  cases  of  falsification  of  passports  al- 
ready mentioned :  the  so-called  Indian  plot :  one  case  of 
successful  and  three  of  attempted  sabotage  in  Canada: 
and  finally  the  cases  numbered  ten  to  fourteen  and 
twenty-four  in  Bielaski 's  list  of  the  illegal  acts  planned 
by  the  agents  Rintelen,  Fay  and  Sternberg, 

I  propose  to  go  into  the  details  of  these  cases  later. 
What  I  am  now  concerned  to  establish  is  that  the  list  in 
question  is  from  one  point  of  view  more  interesting  for 
what  it  omits  than  for  what  it  includes. 

In  the  first  place  one  may  notice  the  absence  of  the  ac- 
cusation previously  made  against  us  more  than  once, 
that  we  had  plotted  to  embroil  the  United  States  in  war 


THE   GEKMAN   CONSPIRACIES  115 

with  Mexico  and  Japan;  from  the  fact  that  Mr.  Bielaski 
made  no  mention  of  this  in  his  evidence  before  the  Senate 
Committee  it  must  be  supposed  that  these  ridiculous 
stories  with  which  American  public  opinion  had  been 
at  one  time  so  assiduously  spoon-fed  were  finally  ex- 
ploded. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  during  my  service  in  Washington, 
nothing  was  further  from  my  thoughts  than  to  conspire 
with  Mexican  Generals,  as  any  such  action  would  have 
seriously  interfered  with  my  chosen  policy.  As  con- 
cerning Japan  I  may,  incidentally,  remark  that  Mr.  Hale, 
when  he  was  acting  in  collaboration  with  us  in  propa- 
ganda work,  particularly  stipulated  that  we  should  not 
undertake  anything  which  might  inflame  the  existing 
antagonism  between  .America  and  Japan — a  condition 
which  Dr.  Dernburg  accepted  without  hesitation,  since 
both  he  and  his  assistant  Dr.  Fuehr,  who  knew  Japan 
well,  were  decidedly  opposed  to  any  such  agitation. 

In  order  to  avoid  misunderstanding,  I  wish  expressly 
to  state  that  I  do  not  deny  that  instructions  were  sent  by 
Zimmermann,  the  Secretary  of  State,  to  our  Embassy  in 
Mexico,  which  envisaged  co-operation  with  that  country 
against  the  United  States  as  well  as  an  understanding 
with  Japan,  but  must  point  out  that  this  was  recom- 
mended in  the  event — and  only  in  the  event — of  the 
United  States  declaring  war  on  us. 

I  shall  return  to  these  instructions  later,  only  remark- 
ing here  that  it  was  my  duty  to  pass  them  on  to  von 
Eckhardt. 

It  should  further  be  noted  that  the  design,  frequently 
imputed  to  us  in  earlier  days,  of  endeavoring  to  stir  up 
a  negro  rising  in  the  United  States  was  also  omitted  from 
Mr.  Bielaski 's  list.  To  the  request  of  a  Senator  of  a 
Southern  State  for  his  opinion  on  this  point,  he  replied 
without  hesitation  that  no  efforts  in  this  direction  had 


116        MY  THREE  YEAES   IN   AMEEICA 

been  made  by  any  of  the  official  representatives  of 
Germany. 

It  is  noteworthy,  moreover,  that  this  agent  of  the  De- 
partment of  Justice,  who  had  heretofore  consistently 
held  us  guilty  of  promoting  strikes  in  munition  factories 
and  sabotage  of  all  kinds,  failed  to  follow  up  his  charges. 
I  must  admit  that,  in  view  of  what  had  already  appeared 
in  the  Press  on  the  subject  of  German  "conspiracies,"  I 
had  expected  that  definite  proceedings  would  be  taken  on 
this  charge,  if  they  were  taken  at  all ;  and  apparently  the 
members  of  the  Senate  Committee  were  also  of  this 
opinion,  for  one  of  them  expressly  asked  Mr.  Bielaski  if 
he  had  any  evidence  to  produce  on  the  subject.  His  re- 
ply was :  "I  know  very  little,  if  anything,  of  that ;  I  don't 
think  that  during  our  neutrality  there  were  any  instances 
of  criminal  activities  of  that  kind." 

Again,  the  Bureau  for  the  Employment  of  German 
Workers,  which  was  likewise  at  one  time  proclaimed  as 
a  device  or  cloak  for  a  dangerous  "German  Conspiracy," 
was  not  mentioned  in  Bielaski 's  catalogue,  which  con- 
clusively proves  that  this  calumny  had  been  allowed  to 
drop.  The  office  in  question,  which  was  known  as  the 
Liibau  Bureau  from  the  name  of  its  chief,  was  started 
by  Captain  von  Papen  with  the  assistance  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Ambassador,  after  Dr.  Dumba  and  I  had 
pointed  out  clearly  to  our  fellow-countrymen  working 
in  the  American  munition  factories  that  any  of  them 
who  took  part  in  the  manufacture  of  arms  or  supplies 
for  our  enemies  would  render  themselves  liable  to  be 
tried  for  high  treason  in  their  native  land.  After  this 
it  was  the  bounden  duty  of  both  Embassies  to  find  em- 
ployment for  all  those  who  voluntarily  resigned  from 
the  factories  working  for  the  Entente;  and  from  first 
to  last  this  office,  which  had  branches  in  Philadelphia, 
Chicago,  Pittsburgh  and  Cleveland,  and  provided  about 


THE  GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  117 

4,500  men  with  fresh  employment  of  an  unobjectionable 
nature,  was  never  guilty  of  any  illegal  act. 

My  open  reference  to  the  German  law  of  high  treason, 
however,  was  much  criticized  by  the  greater  part  of  the 
American  Press,  which  stigmatized  it  as  an  attempt  "to 
introduce  the  German  criminal  code  into  America,"  and 
as  an  infringement  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  United 
States.  Such  criticism  appears  somewhat  unwarranted 
in  view  of  the  wide  application  given  to  the  law  of  treason 
by  the  Americans  themselves  shortly  afterwards. 

After  this  digression  on  the  subject  of  the  conspiracies 
which  had  been  previously  imputed  to  us,  but  were  now 
dropped  out  of  Bielaski  's  list,  I  propose  to  return  to  the 
instances  of  illegal  action  which  were  definitely  laid  to 
our  charge. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  action  of  Werner  Horn,  a  re- 
tired German  officer,  which  gained  us  for  the  first  time 
the  opprobrious  epithet  of  " dynamiters."  Horn,  of 
whose  presence  in  America  I  was  not  aware  until  the 
story  of  his  crime  appeared  in  the  papers,  contrived  in 
February,  1915,  to  blow  up  a  railway  bridge  near  Vane- 
boro,  in  the  territory  of  Canada,  on  the  line  running 
through  the  State  of  Maine  to  Halifax.  Apparently  he 
believed,  as  did  many  other  people,  that  this  railway  was 
being  utilized  for  the  transport  of  Canadian  troops.  As 
the  act  was  quite  senseless,  and  could  at  worst  only  have 
held  up  traffic  for  a  few  hours,  Captain  von  Papen  saw 
no  objection  to  advancing  to  Horn,  who  was  without 
means,  a  sum  sufficient  to  pay  the  fees  of  his  defending 
counsel.  To  the  best  of  my  knowledge  Horn  was  simply 
kept  under  observation  for  some  time,  and  it  was  only 
after  America's  entry  into  the  war  that  he  was  sentenced 
to  a  term  of  imprisonment  for  a  breach  of  the  regulations 
with  regard  to  the  transport  of  explosives  (he  had  ap- 
parently carried  his  dynamite  with  him  in  a  hand-bag). 


118       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

Of  the  three  attempts  at  sabotage  in  Canada,  the  Wei- 
land  Canal  affair  caused  at  the  time  the  greatest  sensa- 
tion in  New  York.  The  Welland  Canal  connects  Lake 
Ontario  with  Lake  Erie,  west  of  Niagara  Falls,  i.e., 
through  Canadian  territory,  and  it  is  a  highway  for  all 
seaborne  traffic  on  the  great  lakes,  and  particularly  for 
the  transport  of  corn  to  the  coast.  It  was,  therefore, 
considered  advantageous  from  a  military  point  of  view 
to  attempt  the  destruction  of  the  canal.  This  had  ap- 
parently already  been  projected  in  September  by  a  Ger- 
man adventurer,  calling  himself  Horst  von  der  Goltz, 
but  for  some  unexplained  reason  the  idea  had  been 
abandoned  at  the  last  moment. 

Captain  Hans  Tauscher,  Krupps*  representative  in 
New  York,  was  charged  in  1916  with  having  supplied 
dynamite  for  this  scheme,  but  was  acquitted,  on  his  call- 
ing evidence  to  prove  that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
use  which  was  to  be  made  of  the  explosive. 

The  first  information  that  I  had  about  the  attempt  on 
the  Welland  Canal  was  the  report  of  the  proceedings 
against  Captain  Tauscher.  Even  to-day  the  full  truth 
of  the  matter  has  not  yet  come  to  light.  The  leading 
figure  of  the  drama,  von  der  Goltz,  while  on  his  way  to 
Germany  in  October,  1914,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
British.  When  Captain  von  Papen  returned  to  Ger- 
many in  December,  1915,  under  safe  conduct  of  Great 
Britain,  his  papers  were  taken  from  him  at  a  Scottish 
port;  among  them  was  his  American  check  book,  and 
an  examination  of  this  led  to  the  identification  of  von  der 
Goltz  as  the  individual  who  had  planned  the  destruction 
of  the  Welland  Canal.  The  latter,  it  would  seem,  was 
thereupon  offered,  by  the  English  authorities,  the  alter- 
natives of  being  shot  or  of  returning  to  America  under 
a  guarantee  of  personal  safety,  and  giving  evidence 
against  Germany  in  open  court.  He  chose  the  latter 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  119 

course,  and  turned  " State's  evidence "  in  New  York, 
where  he  was  kept  under  constant  supervision.  His 
statements,  however,  in  view  of  the  pressure  brought  to 
bear  upon  him,  and  of  his  doubtful  past,  can  only  be  re- 
garded as  of  somewhat  doubtful  value. 

During  the  whole  course  of  my  period  of  office  in  the 
United  States  I  heard  nothing  about  the  case  of  Albert 
Kaltschmidt,  the  German  resident  in  Detroit,  who,  after 
America's  declaration  of  war,  was  arrested  on  a  charge 
of  conspiring — apparently  some  time  in  1915 — to  blow 
up  a  munition  factory,  an  arsenal  and  a  railway  bridge 
in  Canada,  and  sentenced  in  December,  1917,  to  penal 
servitude,  together  with  four  of  his  confederates,  and  the 
statements  made  in  the  American  Press  which  fastened 
upon  me  the  responsibility  for  the  deeds  of  violence  then 
simmering  in  the  brain  of  this  individual,  on  the  ground 
that,  in  October,  1915,  he  had  received  a  considerable  ad- 
vance from  a  banking  account  opened  in  my  name  and 
that  of  Privy  Councillor  Albert,  I  most  emphatically 
deny.  Kaltschmidt,  who  was  a  well-known  business  man, 
had  acted  on  behalf  of  Albert  and  von  Papen  in  several 
negotiations,  with  the  object  of  forestalling  the  Entente 's 
agents  in  the  purchase  of  important  war  material,  and 
had  consequently  been  in  receipt  of  considerable  sums 
of  money  for  this  purpose,  both  from  von  Papen  and 
from  the  general  funds  of  the  Embassy.  This  had,  of 
course,  earned  him  the  undying  hatred  of  the  outwitted 
agents  of  our  enemies,  and  he  had  also,  in  company  with 
his  sister  and  brother-in-law  (both  of  whom  were  later 
convicted  of  complicity  in  his  designs),  got  himself  dis- 
liked for  the  prominent  part  he  played  in  the  agitation 
for  an  embargo  on  the  export  of  arms  and  munitions  of 
war.  It  seems  quite  possible  that  the  charges  against 
him  were  the  work  of  private  enemies,  and  that  the 
American  Criminal  Court,  which  condemned  him,  was 


120        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

hoodwinked  by  the  schemings  of  certain  Canadians ;  the 
fact  that  these  criminal  designs  on  Kaltschmidt's  part 
only  came  to  light  after  the  United  States  had  become 
a  belligerent  adds  probability  to  the  supposition.  One 
thing,  however,  is  certain,  that  even  if  the  alleged  plot 
on  the  part  of  Kaltschmidt  and  his  relations  had  any  real 
existence,  the  initiative  was  theirs  alone,  and  cannot  be 
laid  at  the  door  of  the  Embassy. 

The  affair  of  Bopp,  the  German  Consnl-General  at 
San  Francisco,  was  also  one  which  aroused  much  feeling 
against  Germany.  This  gentleman  had  already,  as  early 
as  1915,  been  accused  of  having  delayed  or  destroyed 
certain  cargoes  of  military  material  for  Russia,  with  the 
aid  of  certain  abettors ;  his  subordinates,  von  Schack,  the 
Vice-Consul,  and  von  Brinken,  the  Attache,  were  also 
believed  to  be  implicated.  In  the  following  year  he  was 
further  charged  with  having  incited  one  Louis  J.  Smith 
to  blow  up  a  tunnel  on  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway, 
with  the  idea  of  destroying  supplies  on  their  way  to 
Russia.  All  three  officials  were  therefore  brought  to 
trial,  but  dismissed  with  a  caution.  However,  at  the  end 
of  1916,  he  and  his  two  subordinates  were  again  brought 
up  on  a  serious  charge  and  sentenced  on  the  testimony 
of  their  chief  lieutenant,  Smith,  who  turned  State's 
evidence*  against  them,  to  a  term  of  imprisonment. 

All  three  resigned  from  their  posts  and  lodged  an 
appeal,  but  were  again  found  guilty  in  the  second  in- 
stance, after  America  had  entered  the  war.  Consul- 
General  Bopp  and  his  colleagues  if  they  had  in  reality 
committed  the  offences  of  which  they  were  accused,  were 

*Por  the  benefit  of  the  reader  not  familiar  with  American  legal  pro- 
cedure, it  should  be  explained  that  in  cases  where  several  individuals 
are  charged  in  common  with  an  offence,  any  one  of  them  may  be  assured 
of  a  pardon  if  he  turns  State's  evidence  and  informs  against  his  associ- 
ates. This  course  of  action,  reprehensible  as  it  undoubtedly  is,  from  a 
moral  point  of  view,  has  the  advantage  of  facilitating  the  task  of  police 
spies  J 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  121 

certainly  actuated  in  no  way  by  the  Embassy  or  any  high 
authorities,  but  must  be  held  solely  and  entirely  respon- 
sible for  the  course  they  adopted.  In  his  reports  to  me, 
Bopp  invariably  asserted  his  innocence,  and  I  am  rather 
inclined  to  believe  that  he  really  fell  into  one  of  the  traps 
which  the  Allied  Secret  Service  were  always  setting  for 
our  officials  in  America. 

According  to  common  report,  Consul-General  Bopp, 
Schack  and  von  Brinken  later  underwent  yet  a  further 
term  of  imprisonment  for  their  complicity  in  the  so- 
called  Indian  conspiracy.  I  am  quite  certain  that  noth- 
ing was  ever  heard  of  this  affair  until  after  the  American 
declaration  of  war;  then,  however,  newspaper  reports 
were  shown  me,  the  effect  that  in  the  year  of  1916  an 
attempt  had  been  made  by  the  Indian  Nationalists  in 
San  Francisco,  with  German  co-operation,  to  bring  about 
an  armed  rising  in  British  India — an  absolute  "wild- 
goose  chase/'  which,  of  course,  came  to  nothing.  It  was 
asserted  in  this  connection  that  a  cargo  of  arms  and 
ammunition  on  board  the  small  schooner  Annie  Larsen, 
and  destined  for  our  forces  in  German  East  Africa,  was, 
in  reality,  dispatched  to  India  via  Java  and  Siam ;  but  no 
proofs  were  brought  forward  in  support  of  this  state- 
ment. In  connection  with  this  design,  four  persons  were 
sentenced  at  Chicago,  in  October,  1917,  and  ten  (accord- 
ing to  Bielaski  twenty-nine  in  all)  at  San  Francisco,  in 
August,  1918,  to  long  terms  of  imprisonment,  for  having 
"illegally  conspired  in  the  United  States  to  make  war 
against  the  territories  and  possessions  of  His  Majesty 
the  King  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  and  Emperor  of 
India/*  It  seems  that  this  affair  was  exploited  with 
great  success  by  the  American  propaganda  service  to  in- 
flame the  minds  of  its  people  against  Germany.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  cannot  too  strongly  condemn  on  prin- 
ciple all  military  enterprises  undertaken  from  neutral 


122        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

territory;  but,  from  the  purely  moral  point  of  view,  I 
cannot  but  remark  that  it  ill  befits  America  to  give  vent 
to  righteous  indignation  over  such  activities,  considering 
the  facilities  she  afforded  to  Czechs  and  Poles,  during 
her  period  of  neutrality,  for  supporting  to  the  utmost  of 
their  power  their  blood  brothers  in  their  designs  against 
the  Central  Powers.  Besides,  even  if  it  be  admitted 
that  the  schooner  in  question  was  actually  sent  by  the 
Indian  Nationalists  with  her  cargo  of  arms,  it  is  absurd 
to  regard  the  dispatch  of  this  small  supply  of  war  ma- 
terial as  a  crime,  and  gloss  over  the  fact  that  whole 
arsenals  and  ammunition  columns  were  being  shipped 
every  day  to  France ! 

I  now  propose,  in  conclusion,  to  deal  with  the  illegal 
activities  attributed  by  American  opinion  to  the  secret 
agents  controlled  by  the  German  military  authorities, 
and  sent  by  them  to  the  United  States. 

As  regards  the  machinations  of  Franz  Rintelen,  my 
first  information  about  him  reached  me  in  the  late 
autumn  of  1915,  and  even  now  I  have  to  rely  for  most 
of  the  details  on  the  American  papers.  Rintelen,  who 
was  a  banker  by  profession,  and  during  the  war  held  a 
commission  as  Captain-Lieutenant  in  the  Imperial  Naval 
Reserve,  appeared  in  America  in  April,  1915,  and  pre- 
sented himself  to  me  during  one  of  my  periodical  visits 
to  New  York.  He  declined  at  the  time  to  give  any  in- 
formation as  to  his  official  position  in  the  country,  or  the 
nature  of  his  duties;  I  therefore  wired  to  the  Foreign 
Office  for  some  details  about  him,  but  received  no  reply. 
Some  time  afterwards  he  applied  to  me  for  proofs  of 
identity,  which  I  refused  to  grant  him,  and  as  his  con- 
tinued presence  in  New  York  was  considered  undesirable 
by  both  von  Papen  and  Boy-Ed,  they  took  steps  to  have 
him  sent  back  to  Germany.  He  was  captured,  however, 
by  the  British,  on  his  voyage  home.  Shortly  after  this, 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  123 

the  affair  of  Rintelen  became  a  matter  of  common  talk, 
and  the  first  indications  of  his  mysterious  intrigues  for 
the  purpose  of  interfering  with  the  delivery  of  munitions 
from  the  United  States  to  the  Allies  appeared  in  the 
Press;  the  Foreign  Office  thereupon  instructed  me  to 
issue  an  official  dementi  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Lansing, 
the  Secretary  of  State,  however,  informed  me  that,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  Rintelen,  while  in  England,  had  confessed 
himself  to  be  an  emissary  of  the  German  Government.  I 
then  heard  from  Captain  Boy-Ed  that  Rintelen,  by  rep- 
resenting himself  as  empowered  to  purchase  large  stocks 
of  raw  material  for  Germany  in  the  United  States,  had 
obtained  a  considerable  advance  from  the  Embassy's 
funds.  This  fact  was  one  of  the  main  reasons  for  the 
American  Government's  request  in  December,  1915,  that 
Boy-Ed  should  be  recalled.  I  was  never  able  either  in 
America  or  Germany  to  discover  the  details  of  Rintelen 's 
intrigues ;  he  himself  never  allowed  anything  to  leak  out 
about  it  at  the  Embassy,  and  was  unable  to  send  any 
report  on  the  subject  to  Germany,  as  he  was  handed  over 
to  the  United  States  by  the  British  after  the  American 
declaration  of  war,  and  sentenced  to  some  years'  penal 
servitude.  The  current  story  in  the  United  States  is 
that  he  was  proved  to  have  been  in  touch  with  the  Mexi- 
can General,  Huerta,  with  the  object  of  bringing  about 
war  between  the  two  Republics — an  offence  of  which  the 
famous  list  of  Mr.  Bielaski  makes  no  mention.  Further, 
he  was  supposed  to  have  founded,  in  conjunction  with 
a  member  of  Congress,  and  two  individuals  of  evil  repu- 
tation, a  society  of  workmen  in  Chicago,  with  the  object 
of  obtaining  from  Congress  an  embargo  on  the  export  of 
arms — an  undertaking  which  according  to  the  afore- 
mentioned report  cost  a  great  deal  and  proved  entirely 
valueless  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  German  Govern- 
ment. It  is  not  known  whether  this  undertaking  brought 


Eintelen  and  his  assistants  within  the  reach  of  the  Sher- 
man Act  against  conspiracies  inciting  industrial  dis- 
orders, or  whether  he  had,  in  addition,  made  efforts  to 
bring  about  strikes  in  munition  works.  He  was  certainly 
suspected  of  endeavoring  to  cause  trouble  among  the 
dockers  of  New  York,  in  the  hope  of  preventing  or  delay- 
ing the  shipment  of  war  material  to  the  Allies ;  but  even 
Bit-laski  admitted  before  the  Senate  Committee  that 
there  was  no  tangible  evidence  of  this. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  real  grounds  of  Rintelen's 
conviction  were  apparently  that  he  had  prepared, 
through  the  agency  of  a  certain  German  chemist,  domi- 
ciled in  America,  named  Scheele,  a  number  of  incendiary 
bombs,  which  were  apparently  to  be  secreted  by  three 
officers  of  the  German  Mercantile  Marine  on  board  Allied 
munition  ships,  with  the  object  of  causing  fires  on  the 
voyage.  After  America's  entry  into  the  war,  Eintelen 
and  his  accomplices  were  sentenced  on  this  count  to 
fairly  lengthy  terms  of  imprisonment,  and  these  sen- 
tences they  are  serving  at  the  present  moment  in  the 
Federal  prison  at  Atlanta. 

I  have  been  unable  to  discover  how  far  Eintelen  was 
actually  guilty  of  the  offences  imputed  to  him;  but  I 
can  only  observe  that  he,  and,  in  so  far  as  he  acted  under 
orders,  his  superiors,  gravely  compromised  the  position 
of  the  German  official  representatives  in  the  United 
States,  and  afforded  our  enemies  an  excellent  opportunity 
of  inflaming  public  opinion  against  Germany.  It  is  im- 
possible to  over-estimate  the  unfortunate  effect  produced 
throughout  the  world  by  the  discovery  of  bombs  on  board 
a  German  passenger-steamer,  and  of  their  secretion  in 
the  holds  of  Allied  munition  ships. 

Another  attempt  of  a  similar  kind,  which  had  most 
unfortunate  results  from  our  point  of  view,  was  that 
attributed  to  a  German,  Lieutenant  Fay,  who  had  like- 


THE   GERMAN   CONSPIRACIES  125 

wise  come  to  America  in  April,  1915,  and  two  other  Ger- 
mans, by  name  Scholz  and  Daeche.  Their  idea  was  to 
put  Allied  munition  ships  out  of  action  by  means  of  in- 
fernal machines,  fastened  to  the  rudders,  and  timed  to 
explode  shortly  after  their  departure.  My  first  informa- 
tion concerning  these  gentlemen  was  the  report  in  the 
Press  of  their  arrest,  which  was  apparently  effected 
while  they  were  experimenting  with  their  apparatus 
under  cover  of  a  wood.  A  telegraphic  inquiry  elicited 
from  Berlin  the  reply  that  Fay  was  absolutely  unknown 
there ;  it  is  possible,  however,  that  he  had  really  come  to 
America  on  some  business  of  an  official  nature.  He  and 
his  accomplices  were  sentenced  in  May,  1916,  to  several 
years'  penal  servitude,  although  no  proof  was  adduced 
that  any  real  damage  could  possibly  have  been  caused 
by  their  contrivance,  which  experts  informed  me  was  not 
a  practicable  one. 

Last  of  all,  on  Bielaski's  list  comes  the  case  of  the 
German  agent  Stermberg,  of  whom,  also,  I  had  never 
heard.  In  January,  1915,  he  was  arrested  on  a  charge 
of  having  attempted  to  inoculate  horses,  purchased  for 
the  Allied  Armies,  with  disease  germs.  As  his  practical 
knowledge  was  not  great,  his  intentions  were  in  excess 
of  his  performances.  Bielaski,  in  his  evidence  before  the 
Senate  Committee,  at  first  hesitated  to  mention  this  case 
at  all,  and  was  only  induced  to  do  so  by  the  insistence  of 
another  Government  official;  it  is  clear,  therefore,  that 
he  attached  very  little  importance  to  it,  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  charge  was  not  supported  by  any  witnesses 
in  a  court  of  law,  or  by  any  legal  attestation. 

In  a  word,  during  all  our  period  of  service  in  America, 
as  representatives  of  the  German  Empire,  practically 
nothing  of  all  that  was  alleged  against  us  was  proved 
to  be  true.  A  few  of  the  stories  of  illegal  activity,  how- 
ever, were  based  on  some  foundation  of  truth,  and  were 


126        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

popularly  but  erroneously  supposed  to  further  the  in- 
terests of  Germany.  By  these  means  we  were  first 
brought  into  discredit,  and  from  that  time  on,  every 
rumor,  or  piece  of  gossip  concerning  acts  of  violence  on 
the  part  of  Germans,  whether  based  on  fact  or  not, 
served  only  to  increase  the  wide-spread  popular  sus- 
picion and  distrust  of  everyone  and  everything  German. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT 

ON  August  6th,  1914,  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  proposed  to  all  the  belligerent  Powers  that  the 
laws  of  war  at  sea,  as  laid  down  in  the  Declaration  of 
London  of  1909,  should  be  observed  throughout  the  pres- 
ent war.  This  reasonable  suggestion,  which,  had  it  been 
generally  observed,  would  have  saved  the  world  much 
distress,  came  to  nothing,  owing  to  the  refusal  of  Great 
Britain  to  accept  it  as  it  stood  without  reservation.  The 
United  States  Government  thereupon  withdrew  its  pro- 
posal on  October  24th,  and  announced  that  "It  was  re- 
solved in  future  to  see  that  the  rights  and  duties  of  the 
Government  and  citizens  of  the  United  States  should  be 
settled  in  accordance  with  the  accepted  principles  of  in- 
ternational law  and  the  treaty  obligations  of  the  United 
States,  without  reference  to  the  provisions  of  the  Dec- 
laration of  London."  Moreover,  the  American  Gov- 
ernment drew  up  protests  and  demands  for  compensa- 
tion, for  use  in  case  of  any  infringement  of  these  rights, 
or  of  any  interference  with  their  free  exercise  on  the 
part  of  the  belligerent  Powers. 

On  November  3rd,  1914,  Great  Britain  declared  the 
whole  of  the  North  Sea  a  theatre  of  war,  and  thereupon 
instituted,  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  Law  of  Nations, 
a  blockade  of  the  adjoining  neutral  coasts  and  ports. 
General  disappointment  was  felt  in  Germany  that  the 

127 


128        MY  THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

United  States  made  no  attempt  to  vindicate  her  rights 
in  this  matter,  and  confined  herself  to  demanding  com- 
pensation in  individual  cases  of  infringement. 

Both  in  Germany  and  elsewhere  it  was  clearly  recog- 
nized that  England's  design  was  to  use  this  illegal  block- 
ade for  the  purpose  of  starving  out  the  German  people. 
During  a  discussion  between  myself  and  Mr.  Lansing, 
later  Secretary  of  State,  on  the  matter  of  assistance  to  be 
sent  by  America  to  Belgium,  he  expressed  the  opinion 
that  nothing  would  come  of  the  scheme,  as  Lord  Kitch- 
ener had  adopted  the  attitude  that  no  food  supplies 
could  under  any  circumstances  be  sent  to  territory  in 
German  occupation.  I  answered  that  I  had  expected  this 
refusal,  as  it  was  England's  intention  to  starve  us  out, 
to  which  Mr.  Lansing  replied:  "Yes,  the  British  frankly 
admit  as  much."  It  will  be  remembered  that,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  Lord  Kitchener  withdrew  his  refusal  in 
view  of  the  pressure  of  English  public  opinion,  which 
demanded  that  relief  should  be  sent  to  Belgium  on  ac- 
count of  the  distress  prevalent  there,  and  despite  the 
fact  that  such  a  measure  was  of  indirect  assistance  to 
us.  A  subsequent  proposal  from  the  American  Govern- 
ment for  the  dispatch  of  similar  relief  to  Poland  was 
declined  in  London. 

We  Germans  had  hoped  that  the  neutral  States  would 
vigorously  claim  their  right  to  freedom  of  mutual  trade, 
and  would  take  effective  measures,  in  conjunction  with 
the  leadership  of  the  United  States,  to  force  the  British 
Government  to  suspend  the  oppressive  and  extra-legal 
policy.  This  they  failed  to  do,  at  any  rate,  in  time  to 
forestall  the  fateful  decision  on  our  part  to  undertake 
submarine  warfare.  It  is  now  impossible  to  tell  whether 
this  policy  might  not  have  had  more  favorable  results, 
had  not  the  growing  estrangement  between  Germany 
and  America  caused  by  the  new  campaign  nipped  in  the 


THE   "LUSITANIA".  INCIDENT  129 

bnd  any  possibility  of  serious  Anglo-American  differ- 
ences. In  the  other  nentral  countries  this  submarine 
warfare  alienated  all  sympathy  for  us,  and  no  doubt 
was  one  reason  why  the  neutral  States,  which  in  previ- 
ous wars  had  always  attempted  to  vindicate  their  rights 
as  against  the  Power  which  had  command  of  the  sea, 
now  refrained  from  any  concerted  action  to  this  end. 
Such  a  procedure  on  their  part  would  have  indirectly 
influenced  the  situation  in  favor  of  Germany,  as  the 
weaker  Power  at  sea;  it  will  be  remembered  that  the 
United  States,  during  their  War  of  Independence  against 
England,  drew  much  advantage  from  a  similar  attitude 
on  the  part  of  the  European  Powers.  My  knowledge 
of  America  leads  me  to  believe  that,  had  we  not  incurred 
such  odium  by  our  infringement  of  Belgian  neutrality 
and  our  adoption  of  submarine  warfare,  the  action  of 
the  Washington  Government  might  have  been  other 
than  it  was ;  had  it  even  raised  a  finger  to  protest  against 
England's  methods,  the  latter  must  instantly  have  given 
way,  as  had  so  frequently  happened  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  when  the  United  States  took  up  on 
any  point  an  attitude  hostile  to  Britain.  The  contrast 
between  this  passive  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  traditional  forward  policy  of  America  vis- 
a-vis England,  goes  far  to  support  the  contention  of 
Wilson's  detractors  in  Germany — that  these  two  coun- 
tries were  in  league  and  were  playing  a  preconcerted 
game. 

It  is  impossible  to  convince  one's  political  foes  on  any 
point  except  by  positive  proof,  and  until  the  time  comes 
when  the  enemy's  archives  are  published,  such  proof 
cannot,  of  course,  be  adduced  on  this  particular  matter. 
This  time  is  still  far  distant.  Why  should  the  enemy 
publish  their  archives  ?  They  have  won  and  have  there- 
fore no  reason  to  grumble  at  the  course  of  events,  .Thus 


130        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

I  can  at  present  only  combat  with  counter-arguments 
the  contention  that  I  misunderstood  the  trne  state  of 
affairs  in  America.  The  hypothesis  of  secret  collusion 
between  America  and  England  seems  in  the  present  case 
unnecessary;  the  attitude  of  public  opinion  in  America 
is  in  itself  sufficient  explanation  of  the  situation  at  the 
time.  Sympathy  for  us  from  the  very  first  day  of  the 
war  there  was  none ;  but  had  the  general  feeling  been  as 
strongly  for  us  as  it  actually  was  against  us,  no  doubt 
the  Government  would  have  kicked  against  the  English 
illegalities,  and  enforced  an  embargo  against  her.  I  still 
hold  to  my  view  that  Mr.  Wilson  made  a  real  effort  to 
maintain  the  observance  of  a  strict  neutrality;  but  the 
decisive  factor  was  that  he  found  himself,  as  a  result  of 
his  efforts,  in  increasing  measure  in  conflict  with  the 
overwhelming  Germanophobe  sentiment  of  the  people, 
and  continually  exposed  to  the  reproach  put  forward  in 
the  Eastern  States  that  he  was  a  pro-German. 

The  American  public,  indifferent  as  it  was  to  the 
affairs  of  Europe  and  entirely  ignorant  of  its  compli- 
cated problems,  failed  to  understand  the  full  extent  of 
the  peril  to  the  very  existence  of  the  German  Empire, 
which  compelled  its  rulers,  much  against  their  will  and 
with  heavy  hearts,  to  have  recourse  to  the  invasion  of 
Belgium.  They  themselves,  living  in  perfect  security 
and  under  pleasant  conditions,  had  no  means  of  realizing 
the  perilous  position  of  a  comparatively  small  people, 
such  as  the  Germans,  surrounded  by  greedy  foes,  and 
straitened  within  narrow  frontiers;  their  judgment,  as 
already  remarked,  was  swayed  by  their  individual  senti- 
ments of  justice  and  humanity.  The  attitude  of  the 
Allied  and  Associated  Powers  at  Versailles  might  have 
enlightened  the  American  people  as  to  the  peril  of  dis- 
memberment which  threatened  a  defeated  Germany ;  but 
such  realization,  even  supposing  it  to  have  taken  place, 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  131 

has  come  too  late  to  affect  the  consequences  of  the  war. 
I  am  convinced  that  they  will  in  a  few  years  be  forced 
to  admit  that  Germany  during  the  course  of  her  struggle 
was,  contrary  to  the  generally  accepted  view  of  to-day, 
quite  as  much  sinned  against  as  sinning. 

The  German  Government,  then,  decided  upon  the  adop- 
tion of  submarine  warfare,  and  issued  a  declaration  to 
this  effect.  This  document,  together  with  explanatory 
memorandum,  was  delivered  by  me  on  February  4th, 
1915,  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Bryan ;  it  was  to  the 
effect  that  the  territorial  waters  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  including  the  whole  of  the  English  Channel, 
were  declared  a  war  area.  From  February  18th  on- 
wards every  enemy  merchant  ship  encountered  in  this 
area  was  liable  to  be  sunk,  without  any  guarantee  that 
time  could  be  given  for  the  escape  of  passengers  and 
crew.  Neutral  shipping  in  the  war  zone  was  likewise 
liable  to  the  same  dangers,  as  owing  to  the  misuse  of 
neutral  flags  resulting  from  the  British  Government's 
order  of  January  31st,  and  the  chances  of  naval  warfare, 
the  possibility  of  damage  to  other  shipping  as  a  result 
of  attacks  on  hostile  vessels  might  sometimes  be  un- 
avoidable. 

I  regarded  it  as  my  main  duty,  when  handing  this 
document  to  Mr.  Bryan,  to  recommend  to  the  United 
States  Government  that  they  should  warn  all  American 
citizens  of  the  danger  to  the  crews,  passengers  and  car- 
goes of  hostile  merchant  ships  moving  within  the  war 
area  from  this  time  onwards.  Further,  I  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  draw  attention  to  the  advisability  of  an  urgent 
recommendation  that  American  shipping  should  keep 
clear  of  the  danger  zone,  notwithstanding  the  express 
statement  in  the  memorandum  that  the  German  naval 
forces  had,  orders  to  avoid  any  interference  with  neutral 
vessels  clearly  recognizable  as  such. 


132        MY   THBEE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

Mr.  Secretary  Bryan  was  at  first  incredulous ;  he  be- 
lieved a  submarine  campaign  of  this  nature  to  be  un- 
thinkable, and  my  statements  to  be  merely  bluff.  The 
American  Government  therefore  resolved  to  take  no 
measures  of  precaution,  but  to  dispatch  a  Note  to  Berlin 
on  February  12th,  summarizing  the  two  conflicting  points 
of  view,  which  remained  irreconcilable  throughout  the 
whole  controversy,  on  the  subject  of  the  submarine  war. 
Germany,  on  the  one  hand,  defended  her  course  of  action 
as  a  reprisal  justified  by  the  British  blockade,  which 
both  parties  to  the  discussion  agreed  to  be  contrary  to 
the  Law  of  Nations.  The  United  States,  for  her  part, 
maintained  that  as  long  as  the  blockade  of  Great  Britain 
was  not  made  effective,  neutral  shipping  had  the  right 
to  go  where  it  wished  unharmed,  and  that  the  German 
submarines  were  empowered  only  to  hold  up  merchant 
ships  for  search  purposes,  unless  these  same  ships  of- 
fered resistance  or  endeavored  to  escape. 

The  chief  germ  of  dissension  lay  in  the  fact  that  the 
British  blockade,  which  was  defended  by  its  authors  as 
being  merely  an  extension  of  the  rights  of  sea  warfare 
to  square  with  the  progress  of  the  modern  military  ma- 
chine, was  met  on  America's  part  only  by  paper  protests, 
while  our  own  extension  of  the  same  rights  by  means  of 
submarine  warfare  was  treated  as  a  casus  "belli.  At  a  later 
period  of  the  war  the  Imperial  Government  made  certain 
proposals  to  the  United  States,  who  might,  by  accepting 
them,  have  safeguarded  all  their  commercial  and  ship- 
ping interests,  not  to  mention  the  lives  of  their  citizens, 
to  the  fullest  possible  extent,  and  yet  have  allowed  us 
a  free  field  for  our  submarine  warfare.  These  proposals 
the  United  States  rejected ;  thus  she  set  herself  to  com- 
bat with  all  her  strength  any  continuance  of  the  blockade 
restrictions  through  our  submarines,  while  conniving  at 
the  similar  restrictions  exercised  by  England,  although 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  133 

these  latter  infringed  far  more  seriously  the  rights  of 
neutral  Powers. 

The  following  extract  from  the  American  Note  of 
February  12th  clearly  presaged  the  conflict  to  come : 

"This  Government  has  carefully  noted  the  explana- 
tory statement  issued  by  the  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment at  the  same  time  with  the  proclamation  of  the 
German  Admiralty,  and  takes  this  occasion  to  remind 
the  Imperial  German  Government  very  respectfully  that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  open  to  none  of 
the  criticisms  for  unneutral  action  to  which  the  German 
Government  believe  the  governments  of  certain  other 
neutral  nations  have  laid  themselves  open ;  that  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  has  not  consented  or  ac- 
quiesced in  any  measures  which  may  have  been  taken  by 
the  other  belligerent  nations  in  the  present  war  which 
operate  to  restrain  neutral  trade,  but  has,  on  the  con- 
trary, taken  in  all  such  matters  a  position  which  war- 
rants it  in  holding  those  governments  responsible  in  the 
proper  way  for  any  untoward  effects  upon  American 
shipping  which  the  accepted  principles  of  international 
law  do  not  justify;  and  that  it,  therefore,  regards  itself 
as  free  in  the  present  instance  to  take  with  a  clear  con- 
science and  upon  accepted  principles  the  position  indi- 
cated in  this  Note. 

"If  the  commanders  of  German  vessels  of  war  should 
act  upon  the  presumption  that  the  flag  of  the  United 
States  was  not  being  used  in  good  faith  and  should 
destroy  on  the  high  seas  an  American  or  the  lives  of 
American  citizens,  it  would  be  difficult  for  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  to  view  the  act  in  any  other 
light  than  as  an  indefensible  violation  of  neutral  rights 
which  it  would  be  very  hard  indeed  to  reconcile  with  the 


134        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

friendly  relations  now  so  happily  subsisting  between  the 
two  Governments. 

"If  such  a  deplorable  situation  should  arise,  the  Im- 
perial German  Government  can  readily  appreciate  that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  would  be  con- 
strained to  hold  the  Imperial  German  Government  to  a 
strict  accountability  for  such  acts  of  their  naval  authori- 
ties, and  to  take  any  steps  it  might  be  necessary  to  take 
to  safeguard  the  Amp.riflim  lives  and  property  and  to 
secure  to  American  citizens  the  full  enjoyment  of  their 
acknowledged  rights  on  the  high  seas." 

The  Imperial  Government  reaffirmed  its  standpoint  in 
a  further  Note,  dated  February  16th,  the  gist  and  con- 
clusion of  which  was  as  under: 

"If  the  American  Government,  by  reason  of  that 
weight  which  it  is  able  and  entitled  to  cast  into  the  bal- 
ance which  decides  the  fate  of  peoples,  should  succeed 
even  now  in  removing  those  causes  which  make  the  pres- 
ent action  of  the  German  Government  an  imperious 
duty ;  if  the  American  Government,  in  short,  should  suc- 
ceed in  inducing  the  Powers  at  war  with  Germany  to 
abide  by  the  terms  of  the  Declaration  of  London,  and 
to  permit  the  free  importation  into  Germany  of  food- 
stuffs and  raw  material,  the  Imperial  Government  would 
recognize  in  such  action  a  service  of  inestimable  value, 
tending  to  introduce  a  spirit  of  greater  humanity  into 
the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  would  willingly  draw  its  own 
conclusions  from  the  resulting  new  situation." 

This  Note  was  effective,  in  that  it  induced  the  Ameri- 
can Government  to  dispatch  on  February  22nd  an  iden- 
tical Note  to  Great  Britain  and  Germany,  with  the  ob- 
ject of  arriving  at  a  modus  vivendi  in  the  matter.  Their 
proposal  was  as  follows:  Submarines  were  not  to  be 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  135 

employed  in  any  attack  on  merchant  ships  of  whatever 
nationality,  save  in  execution  of  the  rights  of  detention 
or  search;  merchant  ships,  for  their  part,  were  not  to 
make  use  of  neutral  flags,  whether  as  a  ruse  de  guerre 
or  to  avoid  identification.  Great  Britain  would  give  free 
passage  to  provisions  and  food  supplies  consigned  to  cer- 
tain agents  in  Germany,  to  be  named  by  the  United 
States.  These  agents  would  receive  all  goods  thus  im- 
ported and  dispatch  them  to  specially  licensed  distribut- 
ing firms,  who  were  to  be  responsible  that  they  were 
issued  exclusively  to  the  civilian  population. 

The  above  project  was  concurred  in  by  the  German 
Government  in  a  Note  of  February  28th,  which  added 
that  * '  The  Imperial  Government  considered  it  right  that 
other  raw  materials,  essential  to  manufacture  for  peace- 
ful purposes,  and  also  fodder,  should  also  be  imported 
without  interference. " 

The  British  Government,  as  was  to  be  expected,  re- 
jected the  American  proposal  on  somewhat  flimsy  pre- 
texts, for  England's  sea  supremacy  was  at  stake  in  this 
as  in  her  previous  wars.  "Britannia  rules  the  waves" 
was,  and  ever  must  be,  the  guiding  principle  of  all  her 
policy,  while  her  world-Empire  endures.  On  this  vitally 
important  question  England  could  not  be  expected  ever 
to  yield  an  inch  of  her  own  free  will. 

Thus  the  American  attempt  at  mediation  died  a 
natural  death. 

Our  adoption  of  submarine  warfare  was  to  be  re- 
garded, according  to  our  Note  of  February  16th,  as  a 
measure  of  reprisal  in  answer  to  the  English  blockade. 
From  a  tactical  point  of  view,  this  contention  was  un- 
fortunate, as  it  afforded  America  the  opportunity  of 
agreeing  at  once,  and  thus  of  conceding  us  a  point  which 
benefited  us  not  at  all,  but  merely  gave  the  United  States 
all  the  more  right  to  renew  its  protests  against  the  sub- 


136        MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

marine  war.  It  would  have  been  wiser  for  us  to  have 
initiated  the  submarine  campaign  simply  as  a  new 
weapon  of  war  without  reference  to  the  English  block- 
ade ;  still  better,  to  put  it  into  operation  without  declar- 
ing a  blockade  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  which  could 
never  be  really  effective,  and  caused  constant  friction 
between  ourselves  and  America.  Our  declaration  that 
the  territorial  waters  of  Great  Britain  were  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  war  area  was  a  legal  formality  modelled  on 
the  earlier  English  proclamation  of  the  barred  zones, 
and  at  once  antagonized  public  opinion  in  the  United 
States.  By  adopting  the  point  of  view  we  did  with  re- 
gard to  reprisals,  we  laid  ourselves  open  to  the  charge 
of  illegality,  and  added  to  the  ill-feeling  already  excited 
by  the  submarine  campaign.  If  the  contention  of  cer- 
tain naval  authorities  that  the  observance  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  London  by  our  enemies  would  have  brought  us 
no  important  material  advantage  is  correct,  the  issue 
of  our  Note  of  February  16th  becomes  even  less  compre- 
hensible. Having  admitted  in  this  Note  that  the  declara- 
tion of  the  barred  zones  was  caused  by  the  fact  that  all 
was  not  well  with  us,  we  could  hardly  expect  England 
would  fall  in  with  the  proposal  made  at  our  suggestion 
by  Mr.  Wilson,  and  thus  allow  us  so  easy  a  diplomatic 
triumph.  The  President,  however,  after  his  rebuff  from 
England,  was  bound,  in  order  to  maintain  his  prestige, 
to  bring  all  possible  pressure  to  bear  on  us,  in  the  hope 
of  compensating  by  diplomatic  success  in  Berlin  for  his 
failure  in  London.  My  subsequent  attitude  was  laid 
down,  but  at  the  same  time  made  more  difficult,  by  this 
interchange  of  Notes;  but,  generally  speaking,  my  per- 
sonal action  in  the  matter  began  with  the  Lusitania  in- 
cident; previous  to  this  the  negotiations  had  been  en- 
tirely in  the  hands  of  Berlin. 
The  Washington  Government  then  for  the  present  as- 


THE  "LUSITANIA"  INCIDENT  137 

smned  a  waiting  attitude,  until  such  time  as  loss  of 
American  lives  through  our  submarine  activities  should 
compel  its  intervention.  With  regard  to  damage  to 
property,  the  standpoint  was  consistently  maintained 
that  claims  for  compensation  for  financial  loss  must  be 
fully  met,  Every  day  might  see  a  serious  conflict,  and 
this  possibility  was  a  source  of  constant  anxiety  to  us 
Germans  in  the  United  States.  The  American  Govern- 
ment, we  thought,  still  underestimated  the  dangers  of 
the  situation,  and  failed  to  take  any  measures  of  precau- 
tion. In  the  middle  of  April  I  held  a  meeting  in  New 
York,  with  the  representatives  of  the  other  German  ad- 
ministrative departments,  and  in  view  of  the  great  re- 
sponsibility incumbent  on  us,  we  resolved  on  the  motion 
of  Dr.  Dernburg  to  issue  a  warning  to  the  Press  in  the 
form  usually  adopted  for  shipping  notices.  As  a  rule, 
these  shipping  notices  were  published  by  the  Consulate 
as  a  matter  of  routine.  Dr.  Dernburg  having,  however, 
been  unable  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  the  New  York 
Consulate  on  the  matter,  I  took  upon  myself  to  issue  the 
advertisement  as  from  the  German  Ambassador.  It  ran 
as  follows : 

"Travellers  intending  to  embark  for  an  Atlantic  voy- 
age are  reminded  that  a  state  of  war  exists  between 
Germany  and  her  Allies  and  Great  Britain  and  her 
Allies ;  that  the  zone  of  war  includes  the  waters  adjacent 
to  the  British  Isles ;  that,  in  accordance  with  the  formal 
notice  given  by  the  Imperial  German  Government,  ves- 
sels flying  the  flag  of  Great  Britain  or  any  of  her  Allies 
are  liable  to  destruction  in  those  waters ;  and  that  trav- 
ellers sailing  in  the  war  zone  in  ships  of  Great  Britain 
or  her  Allies  do  so  at  their  own  risk." 

"IMPERIAL  GERMAN  EMBASSY,  Washington. 
"April  22nd,  1915." 


138        MY  THEEE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

This  notice  was  intended  to  appear  in  the  Press  on 
April  24th  and  the  two  following  Saturdays.  By  one  of 
those  fatal  coincidences  beloved  of  history,  it  happened 
that  owing  to  technical  difficulties  the  communique  was 
not  actually  published  until  May  1st — the  very  date  on 
which  the  Lusitania  left  New  York  harbor.  This  con- 
junction  was  bound  to  appear  intentional  rather  than 
fortuitous,  and  even  to-day  the  majority  of  Americans 
believe  that  I  must  have  known  beforehand  of  the  design 
to  torpedo  the  Lusitania. 

As  the  true  facts  of  the  matter  are  not  yet  clear,  and 
were  never  explained  officially,  I  have  no  means  of  say- 
ing whether  the  destruction  of  the  Lusitania  was  the 
result  of  a  deliberate  purpose  on  the  part  of  our  naval 
authorities.  To  the  best  of  my  belief  technical  factors 
render  it  impossible  for  a  submarine  commander  to  make 
any  one  particular  ship  the  object  of  his  attack,  so  that 
the  officer  responsible  for  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania 
could  not  have  been  certain  what  vessel  he  had  to  deal 
with.  In  any  case,  whether  the  action  of  our  naval 
authorities  was  planned  out  beforehand  or  not,  we  in 
America  had  no  knowledge  of  any  such  plan;  indeed, 
until  it  actually  occurred,  I  believed  the  destruction  of 
the  Lusitania  to  be  unthinkable,  not  merely  for  humani- 
tarian reasons,  but  because  it  was  obviously  sound  policy 
to  refrain  as  far  as  possible  from  any  attack  on  passen- 
ger ships.  I  did  not  at  the  time  realize  how  difficult  it 
was  for  our  naval  forces  to  insure  the  safety  of  such 
vessels  without  impairing  the  efficiency  of  the  submarine 
blockade.  Again,  I  did  not  believe  it  possible  to  torpedo 
a  rapidly-moving  ship  like  the  Lusitania  if  she  were 
going  at  full  speed ;  and,  finally,  I  supposed  that  a  mod- 
ern liner,  if  actually  struck,  would  remain  afloat  long 
enough  to  allow  of  the  rescue  of  her  passengers.  The 
captain  of  the  Lusitania  himself  seems  to  have  been  quite 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  139 

at  ease  in  his  mind  on  the  matter ;  at  all  events,  he  took 
no  precautionary  measures  to  avoid  the  danger  threat- 
ening him,  or  to  insure  the  safety  of  the  people  on  board 
in  case  of  need.  The  rapidity  with  which  the  ship  went 
down  and  the  resulting  heavy  death-roll  can  only  be  at- 
tributed to  the  explosion  of  the  masses  of  ammunition 
which  formed  part  of  the  cargo. 

Let  me  once  more  lay  stress  on  the  fact  that  our  notice 
to  the  Press  had  no  particular  reference  to  the  Lusi- 
tania,  but  was  simply  a  general  warning,  the  publication 
of  which  was  motived  simply  by  humanity  and  wise  pol- 
icy, and  was  rendered  necessary  by  the  apathetic  be- 
havior of  the  Washington  authorities  in  the  matter.  We 
rightly  imagined  that  many  Americans  had  not  taken 
the  trouble  to  read  the  Notes  officially  exchanged,  and 
would  thus  rush  blindly  into  danger.  Our  failure  to 
achieve  any  result  by  our  efforts  may  be  appreciated 
from  an  extract  from  the  London  Daily  Telegraph  of 
May  3rd,  which  is  before  me  as  I  write.  The  New  York 
correspondent  of  this  paper  dealt  with  our  warning  in 
the  following  headlines: 

"GERMAN  THREAT  TO  ATLANTIC  LINERS." 
' '  BERLIN  's  LATEST  BLUFF.  ' ' 
"BiDicuLED  IN  AMERICA." 

On  May  7th  I  travelled  to  New  York  in  the  afternoon 
— a  fact  in  itself  sufficient  to  prove  that  I  was  not  expect- 
ing the  disaster  to  the  Lusitania.  It  chanced  that  Paul 
Warburg  and  another  American  banker  were  on  the 
same  train.  I  bought  an  evening  paper  at  Philadelphia, 
and  there  read  the  first  news  about  the  sinking  of  the 
great  liner;  I  read  them  to  my  two  travelling  compan- 
ions, both  of  whom  disbelieved  the  story  at  the  time; 
but  Jacob  Schiff  met  us  in  New  York  with  the  news  that 


140        MY  THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

it  was  all  too  true,  and  tliat  in  the  first  moment  of  ex- 
citement he  had  hurried  to  the  station  to  inform  his 
brother-in-law,  Warburg,  of  what  had  happened.  I  had 
come  to  New  York  with  the  intention  of  being  present  at 
a  performance  of  The  Bat,  given  by  a  German  company 
for  the  benefit  of  the  German  Bed  Cross;  but  when  I 
learned  on  my  arrival  at  the  Eitz-Carlton  Hotel  that  over 
one  hundred  Americans,  including  many  women  and 
children,  had  lost  their  lives  in  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania,  I  at  once  gave  up  all  idea  of  attending  the  per- 
formance. As  the  hotel  was  soon  surrounded  on  all 
sides  by  newspaper  reporters,  I  remained  indoors  until 
my  departure  on  the  morrow ;  I  should  have  returned  to 
Washington  at  once,  but  for  having  to  interview  certain 
German  gentlemen  in  New  York. 

Unfortunately  it  so  happened  that  Dr.  Dernburg  was 
then  away  at  Cleveland,  addressing  a  meeting;  he  took 
the  opportunity  of  defending  the  destruction  of  the 
Lusitania  on  the  ground  that  she  was  carrying  munitions 
of  war.  This  speech  aroused  a  storm  of  execration 
throughout  the  country,  which  was  already  indignant 
enough  over  the  fatal  event  itself.  Even  to-day  no 
German  seems  to  realize  the  full  violence  of  the  passion 
thus  aroused;  we,  accustomed  as  we  have  been  to  daily 
reports  of  battles  and  casualties,  were  little  impressed 
by  the  destruction  of  a  solitary  passenger  ship.  America, 
however,  execrated  us  whole-heartedly  as  murderers  of 
women  and  children,  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  the  victims 
of  the  submarine  campaign  were  far  less  numerous  than 
the  women  and  children  killed  by  the  English  blockade, 
and  that  death  by  drowning  is  no  more  dreadful  than  slow 
starvation.  Every  one  naturally  realizes  his  own  mis- 
fortunes more  vividly  than  those  of  others,  and  the 
Lusitania  incident  first  brought  home  to  the  United 
States  the  horrors  of  war,  and  convinced  all  her  people 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  141 

that  a  flagrant  injury  had  been  done  them.  On  my  depar- 
ture from  New  York  I  found  myself  at  once  face  to  face 
with  this  immense  popular  excitement.  I  left  my  hotel  by 
a  side  door,  but  did  not  manage  to  escape  notice ;  several 
cars  filled  with  reporters  followed  me  to  the  station,  and 
pressed  round  me  so  persistently  that  I  was  unable  to 
shake  them  off.  I  could  only  refuse  to  make  any  state- 
ment, which  only  increased  the  excitement  of  the  re- 
porters ;  but  had  I  said  anything  at  that  time,  I  should  but 
have  added  fuel  to  the  fire  which  was  already  raging  in 
the  minds  of  all.  Finally  I  succeeded  in  forcing  my  way 
through  the  infuriated  and  howling  mob  of  pressmen  and 
reaching  the  train. 

For  the  first  few  days  after  my  return  to  Washington 
I  remained  in  seclusion,  so  as  to  avoid  any  possibility  of 
unpleasant  incidents.  Those  Germans  who  live  in  the 
congenial  surroundings  of  their  homes  can  have  little 
conception  of  the  hostility  with  which  we  in  America  had 
to  contend.  We  had  many  true  friends,  who  right  up  to 
the  final  breach  between  the  two  countries  never  deserted 
us.  To  them  I  shall  ever  feel  myself  indebted,  more  par- 
ticularly in  view  of  their  harsh  treatment  at  the  hands 
of  their  fellow-countrymen  and  enemy  diplomatists,  as 
a  result  of  their  staunchness.  The  pro-Entente  elements 
of  the  country  proposed  not  only  to  boycott  us  socially, 
but  also  to  terrorize  all  pro-German  Americans.  In  this 
connection  it  is  of  interest  to  note  that  a  certain  neutral 
representative  was  accused  by  his  Government  of  having 
taken  our  part;  he  was  led  to  believe  that  .this  charge 
had  originated  in  the  Russian  Embassy,  and  taxed  M. 
Bakmetieff  with  the  fact.  The  latter  had  no  better  proof 
of  it  to  adduce  than  the  report  that  the  Dutch  Ambassa- 
dor— for  he  it  was  who  had  been  thus  attacked — occa- 
sionally had  breakfast  with  me  at  my  club,  and  always 
stayed  at  the  German  headquarters,  the  Bitz-Carlton 


Hotel,  whenever  he  came  to  New  York.  The  above  ex- 
ample is  typical  of  the  attitude  usually  adopted  towards 
us ;  despite  it  all,  throughout  the  war  I  never  wanted  for 
true  and  loyal  friends  in  America,  even  though,  partic- 
ularly after  the  Lusitcmia  incident,  one  or  other  shrank 
from  braving  the  resulting  public  odium.  Such  half- 
hearted champions  we  could  easily  dispense  with;  the 
situation  at  the  moment  was  so  strained  that  we  had  no 
use  for  any  save  trustworthy  and  reliable  men  on  our 
side.  I  may  take  this  opportunity  to  place  it  on  record 
that  my  relations  with  all  the  State  Departments  re- 
mained to  the  last  of  the  friendliest;  I  should  be  doing 
them  an  injustice,  did  I  not  expressly  affirm  this. 

President  Wilson  must  certainly  have  under-estimated 
the  spirit  of  angry  hostility  towards  Germany  which 
then  held  sway  over  his  people's  minds,  otherwise  he 
would  probably  not  have  gone  directly  counter  to  it,  as 
he  did  in  a  speech  which  has  now  become  famous.  On 
May  10th  at  Philadelphia  he  gave  evidence  of  his  peace- 
ful inclinations  in  the  following  words: 

"The  example  of  America  must  be  a  special  example. 
The  example  of  America  must  be  the  example  not  merely 
of  peace  because  it  will  not  fight,  but  of  peace  because 
peace  is  the  healing  and  elevating  influence  of  the  world 
and  strife  is  not.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  man  being 
too  proud  to  fight.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  nation 
being  so  right  that  it  does  not  need  to  convince  others 
by  force  that  it  is  right." 

This  speech  did  but  increase  the  indignation  raging 
throughout  the  country,  and  the  phrase  "Too  proud  to 
fight"  became  the  favorite  joke  of  the  Jingo  and  Entente 
party  against  Mr.  Wilson.  Public  opinion  with  one  voice 
demanded  the  severance  of  diplomatic  relations  with 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  143 

Germany;  and  before  this  powerful  pressure  the  Presi- 
dent deemed  it  advisable  to  explain  away  his  words. 

It  may  be  said,  perhaps,  in  answer  to  the  above,  that 
America  was  indeed  bitterly  angry,  but  still  not  resolved 
on  war;  and  that  public  opinion  was  indignant,  not  at 
Wilson  '&  desire  to  keep  the  peace,  but  at  the  unfortunate 
expression  "Too  proud  to  fight." 

This  view  was  held,  for  example,  by  von  Tirpitz,  and 
also  found  expression  more  than  once  in  the  reports  of 
the  so-called  German  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  New 
York,  which  were  regularly  transmitted  to  Germany,  and 
exercised  considerable  influence  on  opinion  in  that  coun- 
try, although  their  author  was  a  man  of  no  political  in- 
sight, and  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  had,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  no  actual  existence. 

They  were  simply  a  journalistic  device  on  the  part  of 
the  paper  which  published  these  reports.  During  the 
war,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  passions  which  it 
aroused,  there  was  continually  going  on  in  America  any 
amount  of  mischievous  gossip  and  intrigue  concerning 
which  many  interesting  stories  might  be  told.  I  have  no 
intention,  however,  of  concerning  myself  with  these  un- 
worthy matters  now,  any  more  than  I  allowed  them  at  the 
time  to  color  my  official  reports  to  the  home  Govern- 
ment ;  I  can  only  say  that  if  the  reports  of  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  had  any  sort  of  influence  on  German  opin- 
ion, it  was  much  to  be  regretted.  The  opinion,  therein 
expressed,  that  the  United  States  would  never,  under  any 
circumstances,  embark  on  hostilities  against  us  was  un- 
fortunately belied  by  later  events,  and  the  idea  that 
America  was  at  that  time  compelled  to  keep  the  peace 
by  defects  in  her  military  equipment,  had  no  foundation 
in  fact.  Admittedly,  she  was  in  the  year  1917  insuffi- 
ciently equipped  for  war,  and  the  question  of  making 


144:   MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

good  her  deficiencies  had  not  got  beyond  the  stage  of 
discussion.  I  should,  of  course,  have  been  only  too  pleased 
if  my  repeated  warnings  as  to  the  danger  of  war  with 
America  had  proved  to  be  unfounded;  in  point  of  fact, 
after  the  Lusitania  incident,  America  was,  for  a  period 
of  three  weeks,  on  the  verge  of  breaking  off  diplomatic 
relations,  and  panic  reigned  on  the  Stock  Exchanges 
throughout  the  country.  The  fact  that  Congress  was  not 
sitting  at  the  time  prevented  a  flood  of  speeches  which 
would  only  have  increased  the  tension.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  by  the  American  Constitution  the  annual 
sessions  of  Congress  are  short  and  long  alternately; 
the  short  session  had  come  to  an  end  on  March  4,  1915, 
and  the  President  had  refrained  from  summoning  Con- 
gress again,  as  he  wished  to  avoid  discussion  on  the 
question  of  war. 

The  irresistible  strength  of  the  popular  indignation 
may  be  accurately  estimated  from  the  fact  that  even  the 
German- Americans  were  terror-stricken  by  its  violence. 
Not  only  did  our  propaganda  collapse  completely,  but 
even  our  political  friends  dared  not  open  their  mouths, 
and  only  ventured  to  assert  themselves  once  more  after 
the  settlement  of  the  Arabic  case.  Germanism  in  Amer- 
ica may  be  said  to  have  been  absolutely  killed  by  the 
Lusitania  incident,  and  only  gradually  came  to  life  again. 

The  first  expressions  of  opinion  which  I  received  from 
the  President  and  Mr.  Bryan  gave  me  good  grounds  for 
hope  that  these  gentlemen  would  do  everything  in  their 
power  to  preserve  peace.  I  append  the  two  telegrams 
which  I  sent  to  the  Foreign  Office : 

(1).    "Washington,  May  9th,  1915. 
' 'Lusitania  incident  has  caused  great  excitement,  es- 
pecially in  New  York,  which  is  most  affected,  but  I  hope 
that  no  serious  consequences  will  ensue.     Mr.  Wilson 


THE  "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  145 

regards  matters  calmly.  I  recommend  expression  of  re- 
gret for  loss  of  so  many  American  lives,  in  whatever 
form  may  be  possible  without  admission  of  our  respon- 
sibility." 

(2).  "Washington,  May  10th,  1915. 
"Bryan  spoke  to  me  very  seriously  concerning  Lusi- 
tania  incident.  His  influence  will,  in  any  case,  be  exer- 
cised in  favor  of  peace.  This  influence  is  great,  as  Wil- 
son depends  on  Bryan  for  his  re-election.  Eoosevelt,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  beating  the  patriotic  drum,  in  order  to 
win  over  the  Jingo  elements.  It  is  significant  of  Bryan's 
real  views  that  he  regrets  that  we  did  not  support  his 
well-known  attempt  at  mediation ;  therefore,  I  again  rec- 
ommend that  we  should  endeavor  to  bring  about  an  at- 
tempt at  mediation  in  some  form,  in  case  the  position 
here  becomes  critical  This  would  be  a  good  argumen- 
tum  ad  hominem  in  order  to  avoid  war.  Another  way 
out,  which  is  recommended,  is  that  we  should  renew  our 
offer  to  give  up  submarine  warfare  provided  that  Eng- 
land adheres  to  the  principles  of  International  Law,  and 
gives  up  her  policy  of  starvation.  The  position  is  in 
any  case  very  serious;  I  hope  and  believe  that  we  shall 
find  a  way  out  of  the  present  crisis,  but  in  case  of  any 
such  recurrence,  no  solution  can  be  guaranteed." 

American  indignation  was  directed  particularly 
against  Dr.  Dernburg,  who  had  defended,  in  public,  the 
torpedoing  of  the  Lusitania.  I  had,  therefore,  no  other 
resource  but  to  advise  him  to  leave  the  country  of  his 
own  accord.  He  would  probably  have  been  deported  in 
any  case,  and  his  Continued  presence  in  America  could 
no  longer  serve  any  useful  purpose,  while  it  was  to  be 
hoped  that  his  voluntary  departure  would  appease  the 
popular  wrath  in  some  degree,  and  postpone  the  immi- 
nent rupture  of  diplomatic  relations.  The  sea  was  rag- 


146        MY   THREE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

ing  and  demanded  a  sacrifice.  I  sent  the  following  re- 
port to  Berlin  on  the  subject  of  Dr.  Dernburg 's  resolve 
to  leave  the  country: 

"Washington,  May  17th,  1915. 

"As  I  have  already  wired  to  your  Excellency,  Dr. 
Dernburg  has  decided  to  leave  the  country  of  his  own 
free  will.  I  believe  that,  in  so  doing,  he  is  rendering 
a  great  service  to  the  Fatherland,  a  service  rendered 
easier  by  the  fact  that  he  could  no  longer  hope  to  con- 
tinue in  the  exercise  of  his  former  duties.  As  I  have 
already  reported,  he  had  exposed  himself  to  attack  by 
our  enemies  by  his  action  in  going  counter  to  the  present 
outbreak  of  hysterical  feeling  in  a  speech  and  an  inter- 
view which  were,  unfortunately,  not  in  accordance  with 
your  Excellency's  instructions,  received  by  me  on  the  fol- 
lowing day.  So  long  as  Dernburg  only  wrote  articles 
for  the  papers,  he  rendered  distinguished  and  highly  ap- 
preciated service,  but  when  he  commenced  to  deliver 
speeches  at  German- American  meetings  he  trod  on  very 
dangerous  ground.  On  this  point  we  are  all  in  agree- 
ment here.  In  any  case,  in  war  every  possible  method 
must  be  tried,  and  if  any  individual  is  sacrificed  it  must 
be  regarded  as  unfortunately  unavoidable. 

"When  I  informed  Mr.  Bryan  that  Dr.  Dernburg  had 
decided  to  return  home  if  the  American  Government 
would  secure  him  a  safe  conduct  from  our  enemies,  the 
satisfaction  of  the  Secretary  of  State  was  even  more  pro- 
nounced than  I  had  expected.  He  remarked  that  Dr. 
Dernburg's  speeches  had  given  rise  to  the  suspicion  that 
the  German  Government  wished  to  inflame  the  minds  of 
the  American  people  against  President  Wilson's  adminis- 
tration. It  might  be  possible,  now  that  there  were  no 
longer  any  grounds  for  this  idea,  to  avoid  an  immediate 
rupture  of  diplomatic  relations." 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  147 

On  May  13th  the  American  Government  dispatched  a 
strongly  worded  Note  to  Berlin,  which  restated  their 
point  of  view,  as  previously  given.  I  reproduce  textually 
the  following  passage  from  the  Note,  which,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  subsequent  events,  is  of  fundamental 
importance. 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States,  therefore,  de- 
sires to  call  the  attention  of  the  Imperial  German  Gov- 
ernment with  the  utmost  earnestness  to  the  fact  that  the 
objection  to  their  present  method  of  attack  against  the 
trade  of  their  enemies  lies  in  the  practical  impossibility 
of  employing  submarines  in  the  destruction  of  commerce 
without  disregarding  those  rules  of  fairness,  reason,  jus- 
tice, and  humanity,  which  all  modern  opinion  regards  as 
imperative.  It  is  practically  impossible  for  the  officers 
of  a  submarine  to  visit  a  merchantman  at  sea  and  exam- 
ine her  papers  and  cargo.  It  is  practically  impossible 
for  them  to  make  a  prize  of  her;  and,  if  they  cannot 
put  a  prize  crew  on  board  of  her,  they  cannot  sink  her 
without  leaving  her  crew  and  all  on  board  of  her  to  the 
mercy  of  the  sea  in  her  small  boats.  .  .  .  Manifestly 
submarines  cannot  be  used  against  merchantmen,  as 
the  last  few  weeks  have  shown,  without  an  inevitable 
violation  of  many  sacred  principles  of  justice  and  hu- 
manity. 

"American  citizens  act  within  their  indisputable  rights 
in  taking  their  ships  and  in  travelling  wherever  their 
legitimate  business  calls  them  on  the  high  seas,  and  exer- 
cise those  rights  in  what  should  be  the  well- justified  con- 
fidence that  their  lives  will  not  be  endangered  by  acts 
done  in  clear  violation  of  universally  acknowledged  in- 
ternational obligations,  and  certainly  in  the  confidence 
that  their  own  Government  will  sustain  them  in  the  exer- 
cise of  their  rights. 


148        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

"There  was  recently  published  in  the  newspapers  of 
the  United  States,  I  regret  to  inform  the  Imperial  Ger- 
man Government,  a  formal  warning,  purporting  to  come 
from  the  Imperial  Germany  Embassy  at  Washington,  ad- 
dressed to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  stating, 
in  effect,  that  any  citizen  of  the  United  States  who  exer- 
cised his  right  of  free  travel  upon  the  seas,  would  do 
so  at  his  peril  if  his  journey  should  take  him  within  the 
zone  of  waters  within  which  the  Imperial  German  Navy 
was  using  submarines  against  the  commerce  of  Great 
Britain  and  France,  notwithstanding  the  respectful,  but 
very  earnest  protests  of  his  Government,  the  Government 
of  the  United  States.  I  do  not  refer  to  this  for  the  pur- 
pose of  calling  the  attention  of  the  Imperial  German 
Government  at  this  time  to  the  surprising  irregularity 
of  a  communication  from  the  Imperial  Germany  Embassy 
at  Washington  addressed  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States  through  the  newspapers,  but  only  for  the  purpose 
of  pointing  out  that  no  warning  that  an  unlawful  and 
inhumane  act  will  be  committed  can  possibly  be  ac- 
cepted as  an  excuse  or  palliation  for  that  act  or  as  an 
abatement  of  the  responsibility  for  its  commission. 
******** 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  cannot  believe 
that  the  commanders  of  the  vessels  which  committed 
these  acts  of  lawlessness  did  so  except  under  a  misappre- 
hension of  the  orders  issued  by  the  Imperial  German 
naval  authorities.  ...  It  confidently  expects,  therefore, 
that  the  Imperial  German  Government  will  disavow  the 
acts  of  which  the  Government  of  the  United  States  com- 
plains, that  they  will  make  reparation  so  far  as  repara- 
tion is  possible  for  injuries  which  are  without  measure, 
and  that  they  will  take  immediate  steps  to  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  anything  so  obviously  subversive  of  the 
principles  of  warfare  for  which  the  Imperial  German 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  149 

Government  have  in  the  past  so  wisely  and  firmly  con- 
tended. 


"The  Imperial  German  Government  will  not  expect  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  to  omit  any  word  or 
any  act  necessary  to  the  performance  of  its  sacred  duty 
of  maintaining  the  rights  of  the  United  States  and  its 
citizens  and  of  safeguarding  their  free  exercise  and  en- 
joyment." 

The  demands  contained  in  the  above  Note  would  have 
made  the  continuance  of  the  submarine  campaign  impos- 
sible, and  this  was,  no  doubt,  the  intention  of  the  Union 
Government.  The  German  answer  of  May  28th,  which 
defended  the  torpedoing  of  the  Lusitania  on  the  grounds 
that  she  should  be  considered  as  an  auxiliary  cruiser  and 
provided  with  guns,  changed  the  situation  in  no  way. 
Besides,  the  Lusitania  had  ammunition  and  Canadian 
troops  on  board;  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  main 
reason  why  she  sank  so  rapidly  was  the  exploding  of  her 
cargo  of  ammunition  by  the  torpedo  which  struck  her. 
"With  regard  to  the  loss  of  human  life,  the  German  Gov- 
ernment had  already  expressed,  to  the  neutral  Powers 
concerned,  its  deep  regret  for  the  death  of  their  subjects 
— I  hatf  in  person  conveyed  these  regrets  to  the  United 
States  Government  a  few  days  after  the  destruction  of 
the  Lusitania. 

After  this  first  exchange  of  Notes,  the  gulf  between 
the  two  points  of  view  appeared  fixed,  and  was  bound 
in  face  of  the  prevalent  excitement  to  lead  to  a  severance 
of  diplomatic  relations,  unless  sufficient  time  were  gained 
to  allow  the  storms  of  passion  to  abate.  Telegraphic 
communication  between  the  German  Government  and  the 
Embassy  at  Washington  was  carried  out  by  a  circuitous 
route,  which  made  it  extremely  slow;  thus  I  was  com- 


150        MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

pelled  to  decide  on  my  own  responsibility  and  take  im- 
mediate action.  I  fully  realized  that  the  rupture  of  diplo- 
matic relations  would  mean  war.  In  America  we  were 
face  to  face  with  a  vigorous  hostile  propaganda,  which 
had  as  its  sole  object  to  draw  the  United  States  into  war, 
and  thus  bring  about  a  decision  by  force  of  arms.  From 
the  time  of  the  Lusitcmia  incident  onwards,  the  diplomatic 
struggle  between  ourselves  and  the  Entente  was  centred 
entirely  around  the  question  of  the  future  action  of  the 
United  States.  The  threatened  rupture  of  relations  be- 
tween that  country  and  Germany  would  have  left  the  field 
open  for  hostile  propaganda,  by  taking  from  us  all  chance 
of  combating  it.  War  would  thus  have  been  inevitable 
sooner  or  later.  The  first  and  most  urgent  necessity  was, 
therefore,  the  avoidance  of  such  a  rupture  at  whatever 
cost,  and  my  efforts  were  now  solely  directed  to  this  end. 
As  things  turned  out,  it  might,  perhaps,  have  been  better 
if  the  United  States  had  actually  gone  to  war  at  this 
moment.  Her  military  pressure,  and  our  consequent  de- 
feat, would  have  come  two  years  earlier,  before  the  Ger- 
man people  had  been  demoralized  and  exhausted  by  four 
years  of  war  and  blockade.  But  at  that  time  I  had  good 
hopes  of  being  able  to  bring  about  peace  through  Amer- 
ican mediation,  and  consequently  wished  to  gain  time 
at  all  costs. 

I  resolved,  without  waiting  for  instructions  from  Ber- 
lin, to  make  use  of  my  privileged  position  as  Ambassador 
to  demand  an  audience  with  the  President.  I  heard  later, 
among  other  things  when  I  was  at  Manila,  that  on  this 
very  day,  June  2nd,  all  preparations  had  been  made  for 
breaking  off  relations,  and  for  the  inevitable  resulting 
war.  As  a  result  of  my  interview,  however,  they  were 
cancelled.  I  had  a  long  conversation  with  the  President 
and  two  of  his  advisers.  Mr.  Wilson  felt  the  position 
acutely,  and  was  animated  solely  by  a  desire  to  preserve 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  151 

peace.  We  both  realized  that  it  was  a  question  of  gaining 
time,  and  succeeded  in  coming  to  an  agreement  on  the 
measures  to  be  taken  to  mitigate  the  crisis.  We  took  the 
view  that  the  isolation  of  Germany  had  given  rise  to  an 
atmosphere  of  misunderstanding  between  her  and  the 
United  States,  and  that  the  establishment  of  some  sort 
of  personal  relationship  might  be  expected  to  ease  this 
tension ;  I,  therefore,  proposed,  and  the  President  agreed, 
that  Meyer  Gerhardt,  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council,  who 
had  accompanied  Dr.  Dernburg  to  America,  and  was  then 
acting  on  behalf  of  the  German  Red  Cross,  should  at 
once  go  to  Germany  and  report  in  person  to  the  Govern- 
ment. Mr.  Wilson,  for  his  part,  undertook  that  no  final 
decision  should  be  taken  until  Meyer  Gerhardt  had  re- 
ported the  results  of  his  mission. 

At  the  end  of  this  interview  I  was  convinced  in  my 
own  mind  that  the  President  would  never  enter  on  war 
with  Germany,  otherwise  I  could  not  conceive  why  he 
should  have  concurred  in  my  proposals  instead  of  break- 
ing off  relations  at  once.  He  would,  had  he  chosen  the 
latter  course,  have  had  American  public  opinion  more 
decidedly  behind  him  than  it  was  later,  at  the  time  of  the 
final  breach.  Not  a  voice  would  have  been  raised  in  op- 
position, except  that  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Bryan, 
who,  as  it  was,  resigned  his  office  on  the  ground  that  the 
exchange  of  Notes  threatened  to  involve  the  United 
States  in  war,  and  could  not  be  reconciled,  therefore,  with 
his  own  pacific  intentions. 

It  is  certain  that  if  I  had  not  at  this  stage  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  crisis  had  my  interview  with  the  President,  rela- 
tions would  have  been  broken  off  and  war  between  the 
United  States  and  Germany  must  inevitably  have  fol- 
lowed. The  view  is  still  held  in  many  quarters  that  we 
might  safely  have  disregarded  American  susceptibilities, 
as  President  Wilson  was  entirely  averse  to  war  and  would 


152        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

have  avoided  it  by  whatever  means ;  then  we  shonld  have 
been  free  to  carry  on  our  submarine  campaign.  This 
was  not  the  opinion  held  by  myself  or  any  of  my  col- 
leagues at  the  Embassy,  and  later  events  proved  us  to 
have  been  in  the  right,  as  against  those  Germans  and 
German- Americans,  who,  in  May,  1915,  and  afterwards, 
averred  that  the  United  States  would  never  declare  war 
on  us,  and  maintained  the  same  view  in  January  and 
February,  1917.  The  principles  of  my  later  policy  were 
based  on  the  events  of  this  Lusitania  crisis ;  I  had  then 
gathered  the  conviction  that  Mr.  Wilson  wanted  peace 
but  the  country  wanted  war ;  that  the  President  alone  had 
prevented  an  immediate  rupture,  but  that  as  the  respon- 
sible leader  of  the  American  people,  he  would  be  com- 
pelled to  bow  eventually  to  public  opinion.  When  Mr. 
Wilson  had  to  explain  away  his  unlucky  speech  at  Phila- 
delphia, no  action  was  taken  from  the  German  side,  and 
no  information  given  him  which  might  lead  him  to  under- 
stand that  Germany  desired  to  avoid  a  casus  belli  at  all 
costs,  for  fear  of  giving  Mr.  Wilson  an  opportunity  to 
gain  a  cheap  triumph  over  Germany  in  a  verbal  wrangle. 

I  believe  it  unjust  to  Mr.  Wilson  to  suppose  that  he 
wished  to  bluff  us  into  surrender  at  this  time.  He  had, 
while  fully  realizing  the  danger  of  war,  sought  all  ways 
and  means  to  avoid  it,  and  on  this  hypothesis  my  whole 
policy  was  founded.  Moreover  the  President  had  then 
mentioned  to  me  for  the  first  time  that  he  was  consider- 
ing an  attempt  at  mediation  between  the  belligerents. 

After  my  audience  at  the  White  House  I  sent  the  fol- 
lowing wire  to  the  Foreign  Office : 

CIPHER 

"Washington,  June  2nd,  1915. 

"Seriousness  of  the  present  situation  here  induced  me 
to  seek  interview  with  President  Wilson.  In  most  cordial 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  153 

exchange  of  views,  in  course  of  which  we  repeatedly  em- 
phasized our  mutual  desire  to  find  some  solution  of  the 
present  difficulties,  Wilson  always  came  back  to  point 
that  he  was  concerned  purely  with  humanitarian  aspect 
of  matter,  and  that  question  of  indemnification  for  loss 
of  American  lives  in  Lusitania  was  only  of  secondary  im- 
portance. His  main  object  was  complete  cessation  of 
submarine  warfare,  and  from  point  of  view  of  this  ulti- 
mate aim,  smaller  concessions  on  our  part  could  only 
be  regarded  as  half  measures.  It  behooved  us  by  giving 
up  submarine  campaign  to  appeal  to  moral  sense  of 
world ;  for  issue  of  the  war  could  never  be  finally  decided 
by  armies  but  only  by  peace  of  understanding.  Our  vol- 
untary cessation  of  submarine  warfare  would  inspire 
"Wilson  to  press  for  a  raising  of  English  hunger  blockade. 
Reliable  reports  from  London  state  that  present  Cabinet 
would  agree  to  this.  Wilson  hopes  that  this  might  be 
first  stage  in  a  peace  movement  on  large  scale,  which  he 
would  introduce  as  head  of  leading  neutral  Powers. 

"American  reply  may  be  expected  to  lay  little  stress 
on  purely  legal  aspect  of  matter  and  to  dwell  rather  on 
question  of  humanity,  emphatically  enough,  but  as  Wil- 
son told  me,  in  a  sharper  form. 

"President  remarked  that  on  one  point  at  least  we 
should  be  in  agreement,  as  both  Germany  and  United 
States  of  America  had  always  been  in  favor  of  freedom 
of  seas. 

"Cordiality  of  conversation  must  not  blind  our  eyes 
to  seriousness  of  situation.  If  our  next  Note  does  not 
tend  to  tranquillize  matters,  Wilson  is  bound  to  recall  his 
Ambassador.  I  recommend  most  earnestly  that  this 
should  be  avoided  at  all  costs,  in  view  of  its  disastrous 
moral  effect  and  fact  that  this  result  would  be  immediate 
increase  in  export  of  munitions,  and  in  financial  support 


154        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

for  our  enemies  on  immense  scale.  Good  prospect  ex- 
ists of  success  of  present  movement  for  forbidding  export 
of  arms  should  understanding  be  reached ;  and  also  move- 
ment by  Wilson  in  direction  of  peace  is  sure  to  follow. 
Decisive  factor  in  result  is  that  our  reply  should  strike 
correct  note  from  point  of  view  of  public  opinion,  which 
is  decisive  factor  in  balance  here.  For  this  essential  to 
leave  out  legal  details  and  to  lift  discussion  to  level  of 
humanitarian  standpoint.  Meyer  Gerhardt  leaves  to- 
morrow for  Germany  as  Red  Cross  representative;  he 
will  report  fully  in  Berlin  on  situation.  Beg  that  our 
reply  be  held  up  till  his  arrival.  Wilson  concurs  in  this. ' ' 

Meyer  Gerhardt  was  in  a  position  to  give  for  the  first 
time  a  full  and  accurate  review  of  the  American  situation 
to  the  Berlin  authorities.  I  had  given  him  most  precise 
information  of  my  own  views  and  had  placed  him  in  full 
possession  of  the  details  of  my  interview  with  Mr.  Wil- 
son. For  the  rest  I  had  to  content  myself  with  short 
telegrams  by  circuitous  routes.  During  our  conversation, 
however,  the  President  offered  for  the  first  time  to  permit 
me  to  dispatch  a  cipher  telegram  through  the  State  De- 
partment, to  be  sent  on  by  the  American  Embassy  in 
Berlin.  My  reports  as  a  matter  of  fact  were  somewhat 
infrequent  and  always  short,  as  we  had  to  put  all  our 
messages  into  cipher,  and  this  was  not  always  possible. 
In  explanation  of  the  inevitable  incompleteness  of  my 
communication  with  the  Foreign  Office,  I  may  remark 
that  the  telegrams  of  the  Wolff  and  Trans-Ocean  Bureaus 
were  regarded  as  the  main  sources  of  information  for 
either  side,  and  that  I  made  use  of  various  arrangements 
of  words,  to  which  the  Foreign  Office  alone  had  the  key, 
for  the  purpose  of  making  my  own  views  easily  distin- 
guishable in  these  telegrams. 


THE   "LUSITANIA"  INCIDENT  155 

Meyer  Gerhardt,  armed  with  a  certificate  from  Mr. 
Bryan,  to  the  effect  that  he  was  undertaking  his  journey 
at  the  express  desire  of  the  American  Government, 
crossed  over  to  Germany  with  all  possible  speed.  It 
may  be  doubted  if  the  English  authorities  would  have 
taken  any  notice  of  this  safe  conduct,  but  by  good  fortune 
the  Norwegian  vessel  which  took  him  over  escaped  the 
attention  of  their  cruisers.  His  mission  was  so  far  suc- 
cessful that  the  excitement  in  the  United  States  had  time 
to  die  down  somewhat  and  the  first  crisis  in  German- 
American  relations  was  thereby  tided  over  satisfactorily. 
Apart  from  that,  Meyer  Gerhardt 's  mission  had  no  effect 
on  the  future  course  of  negotiations.  The  exchange  of 
Notes  between  Washington  and  Berlin  continued  without 
an  understanding  being  arrived  at;  both  Governments 
persisting  in  their  original  points  of  view. 

The  second  American  Note,  dispatched  on  June  10th, 
led  to  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Bryan,  the  Secretary  of 
State.  He  considered  that  American  citizens  should  be 
forbidden  to  take  passage  in  vessels  bearing  the  flag  of 
any  belligerent  nation,  and  holding  these  views  as  he  did, 
declined  to  make  himself  responsible  for  a  further  ex- 
change of  Notes  which  he  believed  was  bound  in  the.  end 
to  result  in  war. 

The  resignation  of  the  Secretary  of  State  had  another 
diplomatic  prelude  of  a  tragi-comic  character.  The 
Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador,  Dr.  Dumba,  besought 
Mr.  Bryan  to  discuss  the  German- American  conflict  with 
him ;  both  gentlemen  wished  to  find  some  solution  to  the 
dispute  and  hoped  that  the  Ambassadors  not  directly 
concerned  in  it  might  profitably  try  to  mediate.  It  was 
said  later,  and  probably  with  truth,  that  there  was  a 
mutual  misunderstanding  on  this  subject;  but  whatever 
be  the  truth  of  that,  Dr.  Dumba  took  upon  himself  to 


156       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

send  a  radiogram  to  Vienna,  by  way  of  Nauen,  in  which 
he  gave  the  following  resume  of  Mr.  Bryan's  views: 

"The  United  States  desire  no  war.  Her  Notes,  how- 
ever strongly  worded,  meant  no  harm,  but  had  to  be  writ- 
ten in  order  to  pacify  the  excited  public  opinion  of  Amer- 
ica. The  Berlin  Government  therefore  need  not  feel 
itself  injured,  but  need  only  make  suitable  concessions  if 
it  desires  to  put  an  end  to  the  dispute." 

This  telegram  from  Dr.  Dumba  had  just  reached  the 
German  Foreign  Office  at  the  moment  when  the  Ameri- 
can Ambassador  arrived  to  inform  the  Under  Secretary 
of  State,  Zimmermann,  in  his  customary  blunt  and  abrupt 
manner,  that  Germany  must  yield  to  America's  demands 
or  war  would  inevitably  follow.  Zimmermann  thereupon, 
with  the  object  of  causing  Mr.  Gerard  to  moderate  his 
tone,  showed  him  Dumba 's  wire,  which  pointed  to  the 
inference  that  the  attitude  of  the  American  Ambassador 
was  merely  a  bluff.  Mr.  Gerard,  as  in  duty  bound,  re- 
ported the  facts  to  Washington;  mutual  recriminations 
ensued  and  the  Press  got  hold  of  the  story  (nothing  ever 
remained  a  secret  for  long  in  the  American  capital). 
The  general  impression  there  was  that  Germany,  once 
she  were  convinced  of  America's  serious  intentions  to  ap- 
peal if  necessary  to  arms,  would  back  down ;  and  that  now 
Mr.  Bryan  was  made  to  appear  as  a  wrecker  of  the  Pres- 
ident's policy.  His  resignation  thus  became  more  neces- 
sary than  ever,  and  Mr.  Lansing,  hitherto  head  of  the 
State  Department  of  Justice,  replaced  him.  American 
opinion,  however,  laid  the  chief  blame  for  what  had  oc- 
curred on  Dr.  Dumba,  who  was  henceforward  regarded 
as  a  dangerous  intriguer. 

Mr.  Lansing  was  a  lawyer,  not  a  politician,  and  looked 
at  everything  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  lawyer  and  his 


157 

position  as  the  President's  sole  legal  adviser.  He  was, 
so  to  speak,  Mr.  Wilson's  legal  conscience.  My  personal 
relations  with  him  were  always  extremely  cordial. 

Mr.  Bryan's  point  of  view  was  in  every  sense  that  of 
a  neutral.  The  only  really  effective  way  of  safeguard- 
ing American  interests  was,  of  course,  to  forbid  the  use 
of  hostile  passenger  ships  by  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  who  could  perfectly  well  travel  on  their  own 
vessels,  or  those  of  Holland  or  Scandinavia,  However, 
the  greater  part  of  American  public  opinion  did  not  ac- 
cept this  strict  view  of  neutrality,  and  Mr.  Wilson,  there- 
fore, adapted  himself  to  the  predominant  opinion.  It 
was  useless  for  us  to  demand  that  the  President  should 
interpret  his  neutrality  in  the  manner  most  convenient 
to  us;  we  had  to  accept  the  fact  that  his  ideas  on  this 
subject  were  neither  ours  nor  Mr.  Bryan's,  and,  on  this 
basis,  endeavor  to  come  to  an  understanding  with  Mr. 
Wilson,  if  we  did  not  intend  to  bring  the  United  States 
into  the  war.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  as  I  have 
already  said,  we  had  no  means  of  bringing  pressure  to 
bear  on  America,  whereas  from  her  point  of  view  war 
with  Germany  would  be  a  comparatively  simple  affair, 
which  would  involve  no  vital  risks  for  her,  but  would, 
on  the  Contrary,  greatly  benefit  her  from  an  industrial 
point  of  view,  besides  gratifying  the  jingoes,  by  giving 
them  an  opportunity  of  making  full  use  of  their  long- 
desired  Army,  Navy  and  commercial  fleet.  There  could 
be  considered,  as  factors  tending  to  the  preservation  of 
peace,  only  the  pacific  sentiment  of  the  majority  of  the 
people  working  in  alliance  with  the  dilatory  policy  of 
the  President,  who  still  nourished  a  hope  that  some  fa- 
vorable turn  or  other  in  events,  or  perhaps  the  advent 
of  peace,  would  give  him  a  chance  to  avoid  breaking 
off  relations  with  Germany. 

The  diplomatic  incident,  mentioned  above,  made  such 


158        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

an  impression  on  Mr.  Gerard,  as  to  induce  him  to  make, 
on  Ms  own  initiative  in  Berlin,  at  the  time  when  the 
American  Note  of  10th  June  had  to  be  answered,  a  pro- 
posal which  met  with  a  by  no  means  cordial  reception. 
His  suggestion  was  that  a  certain  number  of  passenger 
ships,  detailed  beforehand  for  the  purpose,  anr1  rendered 
clearly  recognizable,  should  be  used  for  the  transport  of 
Americans  to  England ;  but  though  this  scheme  was  em- 
bodied in  the  German  Note  of  8th  July,  it  was  at  once 
rejected  at  Washington.  Any  assent  to  it  would  no  doubt 
have  involved  a  further  departure  from  the  principles 
laid  down  by  the  American  Government — principles  which 
it  desired  should  be  generally  accepted,  but  which  had 
already  been  in  some  measure  compromised.  The  vessels 
which  it  was  suggested  should  be  employed  in  this  service 
were  to  be  marked  in  red,  white  and  blue  stripes,  and 
as  barbers*  shops  in  the  United  States  are  decorated  in 
this  manner,  they  were  called  "Barber  Ships." 

On  the  21st  of  July,  the  final  American  Note  on  the 
Lusitania  case  was  dispatched.  The  Washington  Gov- 
ernment modified  their  position  to  the  extent  that  they 
recognized  the  legality  of  submarine  warfare,  provided 
that  before  the  sinking  of  any  merchant  ship,  the  crew 
and  passengers  were  given  a  chance  to  leave  in  safety; 
in  the  main,  however,  the  Note  maintained  the  original 
American  point  of  view.  It  read  as  follows: 

"If  a  belligerent  cannot  retaliate  against  an  enemy 
without  injuring  the  lives  of  neutrals  as  well  as  their 
property,  humanity  as  well  as  justice  and  due  regard  for 
the  dignity  of  neutral  Powers  should  dictate  that  the 
practice  be  discontinued.  If  persisted  in  it  would  in 
such  circumstances  constitute  an  unpardonable  offence 
against  the  Sovereignty  of  the  neutral  nation  affected 
.  .  .  the  Government  of  the  United  States  cannot  believe 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  159 

that  the  Imperial  Government  will  longer  refrain  from 
disavowing  the  wanton  act  of  its  naval  commander  in 
sinking  the  Lusitania  or  offering  reparation  for  the 
American  lives  lost,  so  far  as  reparation  can  be  made  for 
the  needless  destruction  of  human  life  by  that  illegal  act. 
"In  the  meanwhile  the  very  value  which  this  Govern- 
ment sets  upon  the  long,  unbroken  friendship  between 
the  people  and  Government  of  the  United  States  and  the 
people  and  Government  of  the  German  nation,  impels  it 
to  press  most  solemnly  upon  the  Imperial  German  Gov- 
ernment the  necessity  for  the  scrupulous  observance  of 
neutral  rights.  This  is  a  critical  matter.  Friendship 
itself  prompts  it  to  say  to  the  Imperial  Government  that 
repetition  by  the  commanders  of  German  naval  vassels 
of  acts  in  contravention  of  those  rights  must  be  regarded 
by  the  Government  of  the  United  States  when  they  affect 
American  citizens  as  deliberately  unfriendly." 

The  first  act  of  the  German- American  negotiations  on 
the  subject  of  submarine  warfare  thus  closed  with  this 
open  threat  that  war  would  follow  any  further  action 
by  Germany  on  the  lines  of  the  torpedoing  of  the  Lusi- 
tania. 

I  think  it  well  to  reproduce  here  four  of  my  reports, 
dated  from  Cedarhurst,  a  suburb  of  New  York,  where 
the  Embassy  usually  had  its  headquarters  during  the  hot 
summer  months. 

(1)     CIPHER 

"Cedarhurst,  June  9th,  1915. 

"The  political  outlook  in  America  appears  at  present 
as  calm  as  a  summer's  day.  The  position  abroad  is  per- 
haps reacting  on  internal  affairs  to  some  extent,  as  Mr. 
Wilson,  as  is  usual  in  this  country,  considers  foreign 


160       MY  THREE  YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

affairs  primarily  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  influence 
on  the  prospects  of  next  year's  presidential  campaign. 

"The  tide  of  anti-German  feeling  aroused  by  the  Lusi- 
tania  incident  is  still  running  pretty  high,  but  it  may 
now  be  regarded  as  certain,  that  neither  the  President 
nor  the  American  people  want  a  war  with  Germany.  Mr. 
Wilson,  then,  will,  I  believe,  have  public  opinion  on  his 
side,  if  he  can  find  an  honorable  solution  to  his  differ- 
ences with  us,  and  make  use  of  this  solution  as  the  basis 
for  a  peace  movement  on  a  large  scale.  I  am  now  even 
more  convinced  than  I  was  a  short  time  ago,  at  the  time 
of  my  long  interview  with  him,  that  the  President 's  ideas 
are  developing  in  this  direction,  and  that  this  is  the  cause 
of  his  suddenly  taking  up  the  Mexican  question  again, 
as  he  hopes  to  find  in  it  a  means  of  diverting  public  opin- 
ion. I  am  unwilling  to  give  any  grounds  for  exaggerated 
optimism,  but  my  recent  observations  incline  me  to  the 
belief  that  the  President  and  his  Cabinet  are  more  neu- 
tral than  is  commonly  supposed.  England's  influence 
here  is  tremendous,  permeating  as  it  does  through  many 
channels,  which  we  have  no  means  of  closing;  but  the 
Central  Government,  none  the  less,  is  really  trying  to 
maintain  a  neutral  attitude.  It  is  an  astonishing  thing, 
no  doubt,  but  well  established  none  the  less,  that  all  in- 
fluential Americans  who  come  from  New  York,  Boston, 
and  Philadelphia,  the  English  headquarters  in  this  coun- 
try, to  "Washington,  complain  about  the  pro-German  feel- 
ing there.  I  feel  sure  in  my  own  mind  that  the  Govern- 
ment hopes,  by  reviving  the  Mexican  question,  to  dimin- 
ish the  export  of  arms  and  munitions  to  Europe.  Public 
opinion,  apart  from  the  anti-German  clique,  would  prob- 
ably welcome  such  a  move,  as  it  is  widely  felt  that  the 
traffic  in  arms  and  munitions  is  hardly  consistent  with 
the  continual  appeals  to  humanity  sent  out  all  over  the 
world  from  "Washington.  My  general  impression,  as  will 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  161 

be  seen  from  the  above,  is  that  Mr.  Wilson  considers  his 
best  chance  of  re-election  lies  in  bringing  peace  to  Europe 
and  restoring  order  in  Mexico ;  for  the  latter  purpose  he 
will  probably  employ  General  Iturbide,  who  spent  the 
whole  of  last  winter  in  New  York  and  Washington.  He 
was  at  one  time  governor  of  the  district  of  Mexico  City, 
where  he  acquitted  himself  with  courage  and  credit.  He 
impressed  me  personally  as  a  man  of  great  ability.  He 
should  be  able  to  find  sufficient  partisans  in  Mexico  to 
enable  him  to  raise  an  army,  and  the  bankers  of  New 
York  would  be  prepared  to  advance  him  the  necessary 
sums.  General  Iturbide  enjoys  the  full  confidence  of  the 
present  Administration,  but  only  the  future  can  show 
whether  he  will  succeed  in  establishing  a  stable  Govern- 
ment in  Mexico,  without  the  intervention  of  the  United 
States." 

(2)    CIPHER 

"Cedarhurst,  12th  June,  1915. 

" Since  the  publication  of  President  Wilson's  second 
Note  on  the  Lusitania  incident,  the  daily  Press  has  been 
busy  with  conjectures  as  to  the  real  reasons  for  Mr. 
Bryan's  resignation.  It  is  generally  agreed  that  the 
Note  itself  could  hardly  have  been  the  occasion  of  the 
Cabinet  crisis ;  as  Bryan  had  concurred  in  the  first  Note, 
and  there  was  no  reason,  therefore,  why  he  should  not 
have  assented  to  the  second  one  as  well.  On  the  other 
hand,  no  one  can  believe  that  the  controversy  with  Ger- 
many was  in  reality  simply  an  excuse  for  a  personal  trial 
of  strength  between  Wilson  and  Bryan,  after  the  manner 
of  the  earlier  rivalry  between  Taft  and  Roosevelt. 

"Bryan  has  now  published  in  the  World  a  manifesto 
addressed  to  the  German-American  community  defend- 
ing his  attitude  in  this  matter;  but  it  is  fortunately 
couched  in  terms  which  are  unlikely  to  find  favor  in  the 


162        MY   THEEE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

eyes  of  those  for  whose  benefit  it  was  written.  It  would 
certainly  be  undesirable  from  our  point  of  view  that 
Bryan  should  be  regarded  as  the  champion  of  the  Ger- 
man cause  in  this  country ;  no  useful  result  could  follow 
from  such  advocacy.  We  must  use  all  our  efforts  to  come 
to  an  understanding  with  Mr.  Wilson,  if  possible  without 
compromising  our  present  point  of  view ;  he  is  undoubt- 
edly at  the  moment  the  most  influential  man  in  the  coun- 
try, and  if  he  is  antagonized  we  shall  be  powerless  against 
him!" 

(3)    CIPHER 

"Cedarhurst,  July  2nd,  1915. 

"In  spite  of  the  English  interference  with  the  Ameri- 
can mails  reported  here  to-day,  I  hope  that  the  reports 
dispatched  in  the  ordinary  course  of  my  duty  have  all 
reached  your  Excellency  safely.  In  case  they  have  not 
done  so,  I  may  report  that  since  my  audience  with  Mr. 
Wilson,  the  removal  of  the  *  agitator '  Dernburg,  the  mis- 
sion of  Meyer  Gerhardt,  and  the  arrival  of  the  Press  tele- 
grams from  Berlin  giving  details  of  the  last-named, 
things  have  been  pretty  quiet  generally;  the  situation 
has  reverted  to  the  normal,  and  will  remain  normal  if 
our  next  Note  shows  a  conciliatory  disposition.  I  might 
even  go  further,  and  say  that  the  Lusitania  incident,  tak- 
ing it  all  in  all,  despite  the  manner  in  which  we  dealt 
with  it,  has  exercised  and  will  exercise  in  the  future  a 
favorable  influence  on  our  mutual  relations.  Of  course 
it  has  brought  us  into  even  greater  odium  with  our  avowed 
enemies;  Anglophile  *  Society*  in  New  York,  Philadelphia 
and  Boston  is  infuriated,  and  the  Wall  Street  magnates 
are  little  better ;  but  these  two  cliques  have  always  been 
inveterate  supporters  of  England.  The  Government  has 
lost  ground  for  the  first  time  as  a  result  of  the  Lusitania 
incident,  and  it  now  fully  realizes  the  importance  of  these 


THE   "LUSITANIA"   INCIDENT  163 

questions  of  sea  warfare ;  whereas  when  I  first  spoke  in 
February,  March  and  April  to  various  exalted  person- 
ages about  the  submarine  campaign  and  kindred  mat- 
ters, no  one  would  listen  to  me,  and  the  full  seriousness 
of  the  situation  was  quite  unrealized.  Now,  however,  'the 
freedom  of  the  seas'  has  become  the  test  question  of 
American  politics.  Every  preparation  has  been  made  to 
take  energetic  measures  with  regard  to  England  if  our 
answer  to  the  last  American  Note  renders  further  nego- 
tiations possible.  Even  the  New  York  Press  has  become 
more  reasonable,  and  capable  of  discussing  war  questions 
impartially ;  and  this  was  notably  the  case  over  the  torpe- 
doing of  the  Armenian.  In  a  word,  at  no  time  since  the 
outbreak  of  war  have  the  omens  been  so  favorable  for  a 
rational  policy  on  the  part  of  America." 

"Cedarhurst,  July  22nd,  1915. 

"If  we  ask  what  have  been  the  results  of  our  eleven 
weeks'  negotiations  over  the  Lusitania  incident,  and 
which  involved  the  employment  of  all  our  available  arts 
of  persuasion,  we  may  well  reply  that  we  have,  despite 
our  grave  difficulties,  averted  the  severance  of  diplomatic 
relations,  and  the  inevitable  war  that  must  have  followed. 
The  former  possibility,  at  all  events,  was  at  one  time 
considerably  more  probable  than  most  people  in  Germany 
are  aware  of. 

"There  could  have  been  but  one  opinion  among  those 
who  saw  and  felt  it  as  to  the  popular  attitude  of  mind 
during  the  first  few  weeks  following  the  Lusitania  inci- 
dent. In  such  circumstances  we  had  only  one  possible 
resource  left  to  us,  to  gain  time,  and  hope  for  the  restor- 
ation of  a  more  friendly  disposition  in  this  country. 
The  continuation  of  negotiations  rendered  this  contin- 
gency possible ;  and  so  matters  eventually  turned  out. 

"We  can  hope  for  further  results  only  if  the  American 


164        MY  THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

Government  decides  to  institute  simultaneous  negotia- 
tians  with  Berlin  and  London,  with  the  object  of  bring- 
ing about  a  settlement.  Our  own  views  and  those  of 
America  are  radically  divergent,  and  no  mere  one-sided 
discussion  between  us  can  bridge  the  gulf.  The  Ameri- 
can Government  went  too  far  in  its  first  Note  to  allow  of 
its  withdrawing  now;  although  it  admits  our  submarine 
campaign  to  have  been  a  legitimate  form  of  reprisal 
against  the  English  hunger  blockade,  it  still  persists  in 
holding  us  responsible  for  damage  to  American  lives  and 
limbs  resulting  from  these  reprisals.  Put  briefly  the 
demands  of  the  United  States  are  therefore : 

"1.  A  full  apology  in  some  form  or  other,  and  indem- 
nification for  the  lives  lost  in  the  Lusitania. 

"2.  An  undertaking  that  no  passenger  ships  shall  in 
future  be  sunk  without  preliminary  warning. 

"The  latest  Note  from  America,  which  is  already  on 
its  way  to  Berlin,  will  in  a  sense  bring  the  negotiations 
to  a  conclusion,  as  the  Government  want  to  have  a  defi- 
nite basis  of  agreement  which  may  form  the  foundation 
of  their  discussions  with  England.  In  my  conversations 
with  Mr.  Lansing  I  have  been  given  to  understand  that 
the  Government  wish  to  know  verbally  or  in  writing 
whether  we  are  in  a  position  to  incline  somewhat  to  the 
American  point  of  view,  and  whether  we  can  see  our  way 
to  assist  the  present  Government  to  secure  by  means  of 
joint  conversations  with  Germany  and  England  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas,  which  has  always  been  the  main  object 
of  Mr.  Wilson's  endeavors." 

Dr.  Dernburg  returned  to  Germany  in  the  middle  of 
June,  having  been  provided,  by  request  of  the  American 
Government,  with  a  safe  conduct  from  the  Entente.  I 


THE   "LUSITANIA"  INCIDENT  165 

went  to  New  York  to  take  leave  of  Dr.  Dernburg  and 
invited  a  few  friends  to  dinner  in  the  roof -garden  of  the 
Bitz-Carlton  Hotel  on  the  eve  of  his  departure.  One 
incident  of  our  gathering  may  be  regarded  as  typical  of 
the  atmosphere  of  these  Lusitania  days :  a  party  of  people 
for  whom  the  next  table  to  ours  had  been  reserved  re- 
fused to  take  it,  as  they  declined  to  sit  down  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Germans. 

After  Dr.  Dernburg 's  departure  I  deemed  it  advisable, 
in  view  of  the  popular  hostility  towards  us,  to  redistrib- 
ute the  greater  part  of  Dr.  Dernburg 's  duties.  I  did  so, 
therefore,  in  agreement  with  the  Foreign  Office,  and  with 
the  assistance  of  Dernburg 's  former  colleague,  Councilr 
lor  Albert  took  over,  in  addition  to  his  former  business 
with  the  Central  Purchasing  Company,  all  financial  and 
economic  affairs,  and  was  attached  to  the  Embassy  as 
commercial  adviser.  Dr.  Alexander  Fuehr  became  Chief 
of  the  Press  Bureau  and  Captain  Hecker  took  over  the 
duties  connected  with  the  German  Ked  Cross.  Unfor- 
tunately the  generosity  of  many  in  America,  and  partic- 
ularly those  of  German  descent,  has  not  been  fully  rec- 
ognized or  appreciated  by  the  people  of  Germany.  The 
total  sum  remitted  to  Germany  for  our  R<ed  Cross  and 
other  similar  societies  amounts  to  over  20,000,000  marks. 
The  disillusion  of  our  people  at  home  when  they  realized 
the  slight  political  influence  exercised  by  the  German- 
American  element  in  the  United  States  has  led  them  to 
overlook  their  great  achievements  in  the  cause  of  char- 
ity, which  were  inspired  by  a  heartfelt  sympathy  with 
the  sufferings  of  the  German  nation. 


CHAPTER  VH 
THE   "ARABIC"   INCIDENT 

A  FEW  days  after  the  dispatch  of  the  last  American 
Note  concerning  the  Lusitania  incident,  on  July  21st, 
1915,  Mr.  Lansing  asked  me  to  call  on  him.  He  then  told 
me  that  the  American  Government  had  come  to  the  end 
of  its  resources,  and  if  any  further  cases  occurred  of  loss 
of  American  lives  by  the  torpedoing  of  merchant  ships, 
war  must  inevitably  result.  The  United  States  Govern- 
ment intended  to  write  no  more  Notes,  which  had  been 
proved  useless,  but  would  request  me  to  undertake  fur- 
ther negotiations  in  person.  My  action  in  the  Lusitania 
incident  had  given  proof  of  my  earnest  desire  to  avoid 
war,  and  the  American  Government  were  confident  that 
I  should  succeed,  even  under  such  difficult  conditions,  in 
finding  some  way  out  of  the  present  impasse. 

From  this  time  onwards,  Mr.  Lansing  agreed  with  me 
that,  as  a  regular  thing,  I  should  be  permitted,  whatever 
negotiations  were  going  on,  to  send  cipher  dispatches  to 
my  Government  through  the  channels  of  the  State  De- 
partment and  the  American  Embassy  in  Berlin.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  a  similar  privilege  had  been  granted 
me  at  the  time  of  the  Lusitania  incident. 

My  sole  ground  of  hope  for  success  lay  in  one  passage 
of  the  American  Note  of  July  21st,  which  read  as  follows : 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  and  the  Impe- 
rial German  Government,  contending  for  the  same  great 
object,  long  stood  together  in  urging  the  very  principles 

166 


THE  "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  167 

on  which  the  Government  of  the  United  States  now  so 
solemnly  insists.  They  are  both  contending  for  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas.  The  Government  of  the  United  States 
will  continue  to  contend  for  that  freedom  from  whatever 
quarter  it  is  violated,  without  compromise  and  at  any 
cost.  It  invites  the  practical  co-operation  of  the  Impe- 
rial German  Government  at  this  time,  when,  co-operation 
may  accomplish  most,  and  this  great  common  object  can 
be  most  strikingly  and  effectively  achieved.  The  Impe- 
rial German  Government  expresses  the  hope  that  this 
object  may  in  some  measure  be  accomplished  even  before 
the  present  war  ends.  It  can  be. 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  not  only  feels 
obliged  to  insist  upon  it,  by  whomsoever  it  is  violated  or 
ignored,  in  the  protection  of  its  own  citizens,  but  it  is 
also  deeply  interested  in  seeing  it  made  practicable  be- 
tween the  belligerents  themselves.  It  holds  itself  ready 
at  any  time  to  act  as  a  common  friend  who  may  be  privi- 
leged to  suggest  a  way." 

It  seemed  possible  to  reach  some  sort  of  agreement  on 
the  basis  of  the  above  request  from  America  that  we 
should  co-operate  in  endeavoring  to  restore  the  freedom 
of  the  seas;  but  there  remained  the  question  of  finding 
a  formula  which  should  serve  as  a  basis  for  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Lusitania  question  and  prevent  any  repeti- 
tion of  such  incidents. 

I  was  aware  that  there  were  two  political  counter-cur- 
rents in  Berlin:  the  one  party  desiring  at  all  costs  to 
prevent  war  with  the  United  States,  the  other  preferring 
to  risk  war  for  the  sake  of  continuing  the  submarine 
campaign.  I  was  clearly  bound  to  co-operate  with  the 
first  named,  as  I  was  convinced  that  America 's  participa- 
tion in  the  war  would  certainly  result  in  our  eventual 
defeat;  this  view  was,  I  knew,  that  Von  Jagow,  Secre- 


170        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

has  concluded  his  negotiations  with  us,  can  he  take  up  the 
matter  with  her.  It  should  be  clearly  understood  that 
Mr.  Wilson  does  not  want  war  with  us,  nor  does  he  wish 
to  side  with  England,  despite  all  statements  to  the  con- 
trary in  the  Press  of  the  Eastern  States.  This  Press,  in 
agreement  with  other  powerful  and  influential  circles  is 
Anglophile  to  a  degree  and  not  altogether  averse  to  a  war 
with  Germany ;  but  this  view  is  not  shared  by  Mr.  Wilson, 
or  the  large  majority  of  the  American  people. 

"The  great  danger  of  the  present  situation  is  that  we 
may  be  driven  to  war,  either  by  the  efforts  of  this  Press, 
or  by  a  new  Lusitania  incident.  What  Mr.  Wilson  wants 
is  to  satisfy  public  opinion  here,  by  the  serious  tone  of 
the  Note  sent  to  us,  and  at  the  same  time  to  induce  us  to 
make  certain  concessions  and  thus  carry  out  his  darling 
project  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  by  finding  some  middle 
course  between  the  German  and  English  views.  In  his 
last  note,  the  President  has  certainly  modified  his  views 
in  our  favor  by  his  admission  that  submarine  warfare 
is  legitimate,  whereas  he  formerly  maintained  that  it 
could  not  be  regarded  as  permissible  from  the  point  of 
view  of  international  law. 

"It  is  not  my  business,  even  were  I  in  possession  of  all 
the  necessary  facts,  to  say  whether  it  would  be  better 
policy  from  our  point  of  view,  to  reply  to  this  Note,  or  to 
leave  it  unanswered ;  I  can  only  describe  the  situation,  as 
it  appears  to  me  at  the  moment.  From  that  point  of  view 
the  decision  must  depend  very  largely  on  the  results 
which  we  expect  to  follow  from  the  submarine  campaign. 
If  this  campaign  is  regarded  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  we 
are  justified  in  believing  that  it  can  bring  about  the  over- 
throw of  England,  it  would  be  wiser  to  leave  the  American 
note  unanswered,  and  carry  on  with  the  submarine  cam- 
paign and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  neutral  protests.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  this  campaign  is  only  a  means  to  an  end,  the. 


THE   "ARABIC"   INCIDENT 

end  being  the  removal  or  slackening  of  the  British  block- 
ade restrictions,  then  I  beg  respectfully  to  urge  that  it 
would  be  worth  our  while  to  make  some  concessions  to 
President  Wilson's  convictions,  in  the  hope  of  achieving 
our  object  through  his  co-operation.  He  is  reported  by  a 
witness  in  whom  I  have  complete  confidence,  to  have  said : 
*If  I  receive  a  favorable  answer  from  Germany  I  will  see 
this  thing  through  with  England  to  the  end.' 

"Before  this  report  reaches  your  Excellency,  Wilson's 
Note  will  have  been  delivered  to  the  English  Government. 
If  this  is  couched  in  as  peremptory  a  tone  as  the  one 
addressed  to  us,  then  I  urgently  recommend  that  we 
should  endeavor  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  the  Ameri- 
can Government  on  the  basis  of  the  following  draft  note. 
I  hope  that  your  Excellency  will  send  me  an  authoriza- 
tion by  wireless — it  should  be  sent  in  duplicate  for  greater 
safety's  sake — to  enter  into  negotiations  on  this  basis;  I 
believe  that  I  can  guarantee  to  find  a  satisfactory  prin- 
ciple to  serve  as  a  weapon  for  Wilson  in  his  attack  on 
England.  If  we  show  ourselves  ready  to  help  him  out  of 
his  present  difficulties,  I  am  sure  he  for  his  part  will 
energetically  prosecute  against  England  his  design  of 
vindicating  the  validity  of  international  law.  'It  can  be,' 
said  the  President  himself  in  his  last  Note.  In  these  three 
words  may  be  seen  the  conviction  of  Mr.  Wilson,  that  he 
can  impose  his  will  upon  England  in  this  matter. 

"As  I  have  already  reported,  I  earnestly  hope  that  it 
will  be  decided  to  reply  to  the  American  note ;  and  a  reply 
should,  to  my  mind,  deal  with  these  three  points : 

"(1)  Settlement  of  the  Lusitania  incident.  In  this  con- 
nection it  would  be  well  to  state  that  from  the  point  of 
view  of  reprisals  we  were  entirely  justified  in  attacking 
the  Lusitania.  In  so  doing,  however,  we  had  no  intention 
of  taking  American  lives,  and  deeply  regret  that  through 
a  combination  of  unfortunate  circumstances  this  has 


172        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

actually  occurred.  If  any  distress  still  exists  among  the 
survivors  of  the  disaster,  we  should  be  quite  prepared  to 
leave  the  amount  of  financial  compensation  to  be  decided 
by  a  later  agreement. 

"  (2)  We  propose  in  the  future  course  of  the  submarine 
campaign  to  abide  by  the  practice  recently  adopted.  As 
things  stand  at  present,  the  arrangement  is  that  no  liner 
is  to  be  torpedoed  without  warning. 

"  (3)  We  should  be  prepared  to  support  to  the  utmost 
of  our  power  the  efforts  of  President  Wilson,  to  insist  on 
the  observation  of  the  dictates  of  international  law  during 
the  present  conflict,  and  leave  it  to  his  discretion  to  enter 
into  conversations  to  this  end  with  the  British  Govern- 
ment. The  Declaration  of  London  might  serve  as  a  basis 
for  these  conversations,  more  especially  as  it  was  drawn 
up  at  the  4ime  by  the  American  Government. 

"If  we  act  in  accordance  with  these  my  respectful 
recommendations,  the  breakdown  of  the  negotiations  with 
England  is  the  worst  that  can  happen ;  and  then  it  would 
be  clear  for  all  the  world  to  see  that  our  enemies  were  to 
blame  for  this  breakdown,  and  Mr.  Wilson  would  come 
over  to  our  side.  Knowing  the  President  as  I  do,  I  have 
not  the  slightest  doubt  of  this." 

I  gather  from  the  account  in  Karl  Helfferich's  "World 
War,"  Vol.  IL,  p.  322,  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
in  Berlin  was  in  favor  of  this  policy,  which  I  held  to  be 
the  only  possible  one.  When  he  stated,  as  before  men- 
tioned, that  his  proposal  had  found  no  support  from  the 
Foreign  Office,  I  was  much  astonished. 

I  was  instructed  to  commence  negotiations  verbally  and 
confidentially  with  Mr.  Lansing  on  these  lines,  and  was 
convinced  myself  that  these  would  lead  to  nothing,  so  long 
as  we  persisted  in  carrying  on  our  submarine  campaign 
on  the  old  lines.  Policy  should  be  based  on  what  is 


THE   "ABABIC"   INCIDENT  173 

possible ;  now  it  was  not  really  possible  to  unite  these  two 
contradictory  methods,  and  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  United  States  over  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  bring  her  to  agree  to  the  continuation 
of  submarine  warfare  on  the  existing  lines.  We  were 
bound  to  decide  once  for  all  on  the  one  policy  or  the  other. 
I  supposed  that  Berlin  had  decided  for  the  former  course 
of  action,  as  I  knew  that  our  submarine  commanders  had 
lately  been  ordered  to  arrange  for  the  rescue  of  non- 
combatants  before  torpedoing  merchantmen,  and  I  was 
confirmed  in  my  supposition  by  the  very  fact  that  I  had 
been  authorized  to  open  conversations  with  Mr.  Lansing. 

Scarcely  had  these  conversations  begun,  when  on 
August  19th  the  passenger  steamer  Arabic  was  sunk,  and 
again  some  American  lives  were  lost.  Excitement  at  once 
attained  a  high  pitch,  and  once  more  we  seemed  to  be  on 
the  brink  of  war. 

On  August  20th  I  dispatched  by  one  of  my  usual  routes 
the  following  wire  (written  for  reasons  of  safety  in 
French)  to  the  Foreign  Office : 

"I  fear  I  cannot  prevent  rupture  this  time  if  our 
answer  in  Arabic  matter  is  not  conciliatory ;  I  advise  dis- 
patch of  instructions  to  me  at  once  to  negotiate  whole 
question.  Situation  may  thus  perhaps  be  saved." 

At  the  same  time,  without  writing  for  instructions,  I 
explained  both  officially  and  also  through  the  Press  that 
on  our  side  the  United  States  would  be  given  full  com- 
pensation, if  the  commander  of  the  Arabic  should  be 
found  to  have  been  treacherously  dealt  with.  It  was  my 
first  preoccupation  to  calm  the  public  excitement  before 
it  overflowed  all  bounds ;  and  I  succeeded  in  so  calming 
it.  The  action  I  thus  took  on  my  own  responsibility 
turned  out  later  to  have  been  well  advised,  as,  although 


172        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

actually  occurred.  If  any  distress  still  exists  among  the 
survivors  of  the  disaster,  we  should  be  quite  prepared  to 
leave  the  amount  of  financial  compensation  to  be  decided 
by  a  later  agreement. 

"  (2)  We  propose  in  the  future  course  of  the  submarine 
campaign  to  abide  by  the  practice  recently  adopted.  As 
things  stand  at  present,  the  arrangement  is  that  no  liner 
is  to  be  torpedoed  without  warning. 

"  (3)  We  should  be  prepared  to  support  to  the  utmost 
of  our  power  the  efforts  of  President  Wilson,  to  insist  on 
the  observation  of  the  dictates  of  international  law  during 
the  present  conflict,  and  leave  it  to  his  discretion  to  enter 
into  conversations  to  this  end  with  the  British  Govern- 
ment. The  Declaration  of  London  might  serve  as  a  basis 
for  these  conversations,  more  especially  as  it  was  drawn 
up  at  the  iime  by  the  American  Government. 

"If  we  act  in  accordance  with  these  my  respectful 
recommendations,  the  breakdown  of  the  negotiations  with 
England  is  the  worst  that  can  happen ;  and  then  it  would 
be  clear  for  all  the  world  to  see  that  our  enemies  were  to 
blame  for  this  breakdown,  and  Mr.  Wilson  would  come 
over  to  our  side.  Knowing  the  President  as  I  do,  I  have 
not  the  slightest  doubt  of  this." 

I  gather  from  the  account  in  Karl  Helfferich's  "World 
War,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  322,  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
in  Berlin  was  in  favor  of  this  policy,  which  I  held  to  be 
the  only  possible  one.  When  he  stated,  as  before  men- 
tioned, that  his  proposal  had  found  no  support  from  the 
Foreign  Office,  I  was  much  astonished. 

I  was  instructed  to  commence  negotiations  verbally  and 
confidentially  with  Mr.  Lansing  on  these  lines,  and  was 
convinced  myself  that  these  would  lead  to  nothing,  so  long 
as  we  persisted  in  carrying  on  our  submarine  campaign 
on  the  old  lines.  Policy  should  be  based  on  what  is 


THE  "AKABIC"  INCIDENT  173 

possible ;  now  it  was  not  really  possible  to  unite  these  two 
contradictory  methods,  and  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  United  States  over  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  bring  her  to  agree  to  the  continuation 
of  submarine  warfare  on  the  existing  lines.  We  were 
bound  to  decide  once  for  all  on  the  one  policy  or  the  other. 
I  supposed  that  Berlin  had  decided  for  the  former  course 
of  action,  as  I  knew  that  our  submarine  commanders  had 
lately  been  ordered  to  arrange  for  the  rescue  of  non- 
combatants  before  torpedoing  merchantmen,  and  I  was 
confirmed  in  my  supposition  by  the  very  fact  that  I  had 
been  authorized  to  open  conversations  with  Mr.  Lansing. 

Scarcely  had  these  conversations  begun,  when  on 
August  19th  the  passenger  steamer  Arabic  was  sunk,  and 
again  some  American  lives  were  lost.  Excitement  at  once 
attained  a  high  pitch,  and  once  more  we  seemed  to  be  on 
the  brink  of  war. 

On  August  20th  I  dispatched  by  one  of  my  usual  routes 
the  following  wire  (written  for  reasons  of  safety  in 
French)  to  the  Foreign  Office : 

"I  fear  I  cannot  prevent  rupture  this  time  if  our 
answer  in  Arabic  matter  is  not  conciliatory ;  I  advise  dis- 
patch of  instructions  to  me  at  once  to  negotiate  whole 
question.  Situation  may  thus  perhaps  be  saved." 

At  the  same  time,  without  writing  for  instructions,  I 
explained  both  officially  and  also  through  the  Press  that 
on  our  side  the  United  States  would  be  given  full  com- 
pensation, if  the  commander  of  the  Arabic  should  be 
found  to  have  been  treacherously  dealt  with.  It  was  my 
first  preoccupation  to  calm  the  public  excitement  before 
it  overflowed  all  bounds ;  and  I  succeeded  in  so  calming 
it.  The  action  I  thus  took  on  my  own  responsibility 
turned  out  later  to  have  been  well  advised,  as,  although 


174        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

I  did  not  know  this  at  the  time,  the  submarine  com- 
mander 's  instructions  had,  in  fact,  been  altered  as  a 
result  of  the  disaster  to  the  Lusitania. 

On  the  24th  of  August,  in  accordance  with  instructions 
from  Berlin,  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Lansing  the  following  letter, 
which  was  immediately  published : 

"I  have  received  instructions  from  my  Government  to 
address  to  you  the  following  observations:  Up  to  the 
present  no  reliable  information  has  been  received  as  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  torpedoing  of  the  Arabic.  The 
Imperial  Government,  therefore,  trusts  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  will  refrain  from  taking  any 
decided  steps,  so  long  as  it  only  has  before  it  one-sided 
reports  which  my  Government  believe  do  not  in  any  way 
correspond  to  the  facts.  The  Imperial  Government  hopes 
that  it  may  be  allowed  an  opportunity  of  being  heard.  It 
has  no  desire  to  call  in  question  the  good  faith  of  those 
eyewitnesses  whose  stories  have  been  published  by  the 
European  Press,  but  it  considers  that  account  should  be 
taken  of  the  state  of  emotion,  under  the  influence  of  which, 
this  evidence  was  given,  and  which  might  well  give  rise 
to  false  impressions.  If  American  subjects  have  really 
lost  their  lives  by  the  torpedoing  of  this  ship,  it  was 
entirely  contrary  to  the  intentions  of  my  Government, 
which  has  authorized  me  to  express  to  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  their  deepest  regrets,  and  their  most 
heartfelt  sympathy." 

Fortunately,  as  already  mentioned,  orders  had  been 
given  before  the  torpedoing  of  the  Arabic,  to  all  sub- 
marine commanders  that  no  liner  should  be  sunk  before 
preliminary  warning  had  been  given,  and  the  non-com- 
batants had  been  placed  in  safety,  unless  any  ships  tried 
to  escape  or  offered  resistance.  At  the  end  of  August  I 


THE   "ARABIC"   INCIDENT  175 

received  an  official  statement  to  this  effect,  intended  for 
my  use  in  the  negotiations  over  the  Lusitania  question. 
This  statement  caused  the  first  hitch  in  these  negotia- 
tions. The  American  Government  regarded  the  term 
"liner"  as  comprising  every  steamer  plying  on  recog- 
nized routes  as  distinguished  from  the  so-called  "tramp 
steamer."  The  German  Naval  authorities,  on  the  other 
hand,  averred  that  their  reservation  only  applied  to  the 
large  ships  of  the  regular  passenger  services.  However, 
this  divergence  of  opinion  only  became  important  at  a 
later  date,  and  was  not  for  the  moment  an  obstacle  to 
our  proceedings. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  certainly  unfortunate  for  us 
that  up  to  the  31st  January,  1917,  neither  of  the  two 
contending  parties  in  Berlin  were  able  to  gain  complete 
control  in  the  matter  of  policy.  I,  myself,  was  never  in 
favor  of  the  submarine  campaign,  because  I  was  con- 
vinced that  it  could  not  fulfil  its  avowed  object,  and  would 
probably  involve  us  in  hostilities  with  the  United  States ; 
but  bad  as  this  policy  was,  it  would  have  been  better  to 
follow  it  consistently  than  to  halt  between  two  opinions. 

The  submarine  campaign  was  in  the  end  gradually  and 
unwillingly  sacrificed,  owing  to  our  desire  to  placate  the 
United  States.  If  we  had  made  a  clean  sweep  of  it,  once 
and  for  all,  after  the  Lusitania  incident,  or,  at  any  rate, 
after  the  sinking  of  the  Arabic,  as  we  actually  did  after 
the  torpedoing  of  the  Sussex,  considerable  advantages 
would  have  been  gained  from  the  diplomatic  point  of 
view.  To  my  mind,  there  was  now  only  one  thing  to  be 
done — to  abandon  our  pretensions  that  the  submarine 
campaign  was  being  conducted  in  accordance  with  the 
recognized  principles  of  cruiser  warfare,  laid  down  by 
international  law,  and  to  offer  compensation  for  the  loss 
of  the  Lusitania  and  the  Arabic.  Having  done  this,  we 
could  then  proceed  to  recall  to  the  American  Government 


176       MY  THREE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

their  oft-expressed  original  view  of  the  freedom  of  the 
seas.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  immediately  after  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Arabic  incident,  Mr.  Lansing  sent  a  peremp- 
tory Note  to  England.  But  the  prospect  of  any  favorable 
result  for  ourselves  from  this  exchange  of  Notes  was 
never  fulfilled,  as  our  methods  of  war  at  sea  always  re- 
sulted in  fresh  incidents  and  fresh  conflicts.  There  was, 
of  course,  a  second  possibility:  that  is,  while  persisting 
in  the  submarine  campaign  to  recognize  that  it  was  in- 
evitably bound  to  lead  to  friction  with  America,  and  to 
discount  all  the  ensuing  consequences. 

Neither  of  these  two  courses  was  consistently  followed 
in  our  policy.  We  were  for  ever  trying  to  square  the 
circle,  and  to  conduct  a  submarine  campaign  which  should 
be  from  a  military  point  of  view  effective,  without  at  the 
same  time  leading  to  a  breach  with  America.  The  order 
that  "liners"  should  not  be  torpedoed  under  any  circum- 
stances, was  regarded  simply  as  a  piece  of  red  tape,  and 
not  applicable  to  war  conditions,  as  the  submarine  was 
not  in  a  position  to  distinguish  through  its  periscope  be- 
tween "liners"  and  other  craft.  We  thus  contrived  at 
one  and  the  same  time  to  cripple  our  submarines,  and  yet 
to  fail  to  give  satisfaction  to  America.  Probably  the 
German  Government  did  not  venture  in  face  of  public 
opinion  in  the  country  to  desist  altogether  from  the  use 
of  submarines. 

It  has  been  said  that  "the  freedom  of  the  seas"  was  an 
unattainable  ideal,  a  mere  phrase,  a  red  herring  drawn 
across  our  track;  but  it  was  in  reality  none  of  these 
things.  America  attached  to  this  phrase  a  definite  and 
concrete  meaning;  namely,  the  abolition  of  the  law  of 
capture  at  sea,  and  I  am  convinced  that  after  the  World 
War  America  will  yet  fall  out  with  England  over  this 
question,  and  will  not  rest  till  she  has  achieved  her  object. 
Certainly  the  original  sin  of  the  United  States  against 


THE  "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  177 

the  spirit  of  neutrality  lay  in  the  fact  that  she  suffered  the 
violation  of  her  admitted  rights  by  England's  interfer- 
ence with  the  reciprocal  trade  of  the  neutral  States. 
Messrs.  Wilson  and  House  often  talked  with  me  about 
this  matter  of  the  law  of  capture  at  sea.  It  would  be  a 
complete  misconception  of  American  policy  to  deny  that 
in  this  phrase,  "the  freedom  of  the  seas,"  one  of  their 
dearest  desires  found  expression. 

When  I  informed  Mr.  Lansing  confidentially  at  the  end 
of  August  of  the  latest  instructions  to  our  submarine 
commanders,  he  was  much  gratified,  but  explained  at  once 
that  the  fact  of  its  being  confidential  would  deprive  the 
information  of  all  its  value ;  something  must,  at  all  costs, 
be  done  to  reassure  public  opinion.  I  could  not  but  admit 
that  the  view  of  the  Secretary  of  State  was  correct  in  this 
respect.  The  factor  of  public  opinion  obviously  appeared 
of  less  importance  in  Berlin  than  in  Washington ;  besides, 
I  knew  from  experience  that  no  secret  could  be  kept  in 
Washington  for  long,  and  that  in  a  few  days  this,  our 
first  sign  of  yielding,  would  be  common  knowledge.  I 
thought  it  best,  therefore,  to  get  the  full  diplomatic 
advantage  from  the  new  situation,  and  took  it  upon 
myself,  on  September  1st,  to  publish  my  instructions. 
This  exercise  of  initiative  gcrt  me  a  reprimand  from 
Berlin,  but  I  attained  my  object  none  the  less,  in  that  I 
avoided  any  immediate  danger  of  war. 

Concerning  these  negotiations  the  following  corre- 
spondence took  place  with  Berlin : 

(1)  CIPHER 

"Cedarhurst,  August  30th,  1915. 

"I  have  tried  to  wire  reports  to  your  Excellency  by  the 

route  placed  at  our  disposal,  and  inform  you  as  to  the 

progress  of  the  negotiations  between  myself  and  Mr. 

Lansing  over  the  Arabic  incident.    In  consequence  of  the 


178       MY  THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

instructions  given  to  me  and  the  information  given  by 
your  Excellency  to  the  Associated  Press  in  Berlin,  the 
general  situation  here  has  taken  a  turn  for  the  better. 
The  prospect  of  war  is  becoming  more  remote ;  there  are 
signs  of  returning  confidence  on  the  Stock  Exchange,  and 
I  have  even  succeeded  in  inducing  the  Press  to  see  things 
in  a  more  reasonable  light. 

"Thus  up  to  the  present,  everything  seems  to  be  going 
well,  and  a  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  appears  once 
more  to  be  indefinitely  postponed.  None  the  less,  our 
difficulties  are  really  much  greater  than  at  the  time  of  the 
Lusitania  incident.  The  American  Government's  inten- 
tions are  undoubtedly  peaceful,  and  the  case  of  the 
Arabic,  involving  as  it  did  the  loss  of  only  two  Ameri- 
can lives,  may  be  said  to  be  in  itself  comparatively  un- 
important. There  are  other  factors,  however,  to  be 
considered.  Both  the  Government  and  the  people  are  be- 
ginning to  have  shrewd  suspicions,  which  for  reasons  of 
policy  they  refrain  from  expressing  at  present,  that  we 
cheated  the  United  States  in  the  matter  of  the  Lusitania, 
that  we  spun  out  the  discussion  as  long  as  possible,  and 
then  replied  to  President  Wilson's  last  and  most  peremp- 
tory Note,  by  torpedoing  the  Arabic.  I  am  convinced 
that  Mr.  Lansing,  who  is  an  able  lawyer,  and  as  a  result 
of  his  American  training  alive  to  every  possible  move  of 
an  opponent,  expects  us  to  follow  the  same  policy  over  the 
matter  of  the  Arabic.  He  has  thus  no  great  confidence  in 
our  good  faith,  though  the  President,  I  am  told,  is  more 
optimistic,  his  friend  House  having  informed  him  that 
his  policy  of  the  'freedom  of  the  seas'  commands  general 
assent  in  Berlin.  The  facts  of  the  situation,  then,  are 
that  the  President  will  not  permit  any  procrastination  in 
the  negotiations  over  the  Arabic  affair,  for  should  no 
more  satisfactory  conclusion  be  reached  now  than  was 
the  case  after  the  Lusitania  incident,  Wilson  would 


THE   "ABABIC"   INCIDENT  179 

forfeit  the  respect  of  his  countrymen,  and  would  have  no 
other  resource  but  to  forego  his  cherished  design  with 
what  face  he  might,  or  else  break  off  diplomatic  relations 
with  Germany.  There  can  be  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of 
any  who  are  well  versed  in  American  affairs  that  he 
would  elect  for  the  latter  course.  The  Spanish-American 
War  arose  out  of  just  such  a  situation. 

"The  following  conclusions  result  from  the  above:  I 
gather  from  the  Berlin  reports  of  the  Associated  Press 
that  your  Excellency  has  decided  to  settle  the  present 
dispute  with  the  United  States  on  the  lines  which  I  have 
respectfully  suggested  to  you.  If  this  be  so  I  urge  the 
utmost  expedition  in  the  matter,  that  confidence  here  may 
be  restored,  and  the  way  opened  for  negotiations  with 
England.  It  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  making  apologies 
or  giving  explanations,  but  rather  of  making  a  full  state- 
ment to  this  Government  as  to  the  instructions  given  to 
our  submarine  commanders.  If  we  can  prove  by  this 
means  that  after  the  Lusitania  incident,  orders  had  been 
given  to  attack  no  passenger  ships  while  negotiations 
with  the  United  States  were  going  on,  or  to  do  so  only 
under  certain  conditions,  all  outstanding  questions  could 
be  solved  without  difficulty." 

(2)  CIPHER  DISPATCH 

"Berlin,  September  10th,  1915. 

"Daily  Telegraph  of  September  2nd  publishes  what 
purports  to  be  extract  from  your  aforesaid  letter  to  Mr. 
Lansing,  informing  him  of  instructions  issued  to  sub- 
marine commanders.  Extract  ends  as  follows: 

1  'I  have  no  objection  to  your  making  any  use  you 
please  of  the  above  information. ' 

"If  Daily  Telegraph  has  reproduced  your  letter  cor- 


180       MY  THREE  YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

rectly,  above  statement  is  contrary  to  instructions,  which 
authorized  you  only  to  give  information  confidentially  to 
American  Government.  Premature  publication  in  Ameri- 
can Press  places  us  in  difficult  position  here,  especially  as 
no  official  report  of  actual  contents  of  your  communica- 
tion to  Mr.  Lansing  has  reached  us.  I  beg  that  you  will 
kindly  furnish  an  explanation. 

(Signed)  JAGOW." 

(3)  CIPHER  REPORT 

"Cedarhurst,  October  2nd,  1915. 

"Reference  your  wire  No.  A  129  of  September  10th,  I 
ask  your  Excellency  to  be  kind  enough  to  pardon  me  for 
having  taken  upon  myself  to  act  on  my  own  responsibility 
over  the  submarine  question.  The  position  at  the  end  of 
August  rendered  some  action  to  pacify  public  opinion 
imperative,  if  a  breach  were  to  be  avoided.  Owing  to  the 
difficulties  of  communication  with  Berlin  I  could  do 
nothing  but  acquaint  Mr.  Lansing  with  a  portion  of  my 
instructions  concerning  the  case  of  the  Lusitania — the 
only  ones  which  had  then  reached  me.  I  at  once  reported 
my  action  to  your  Excellency  in  my  wireless  message,  No. 
179,  and  in  a  previous  telegram,  No.  165,  and  requested 
approval  of  my  action;  probably  these  messages  have 
been  delayed  in  transit,  or  have  not  reached  Berlin.  In 
further  explanation,  I  may  add  that  in  this  country,  con- 
fidential matter,  in  the  European  sense,  does  not  exist, 
and  such  matter  can  never  be  kept  a  secret  from  the 
Press.  Sometimes  I  have  been  able  to  come  to  an  agree- 
ment with  the  Government  over  the  wording  of  their 
commwniques  to  the  Press;  that  is  one  of  the  great 
advantages  of  conducting  the  negotiations  on  the  spot. 
Had  the  whole  American  Press  entirely  refused  to  accept 


THE  "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  181 

oar  official  explanations,  nothing  further  could  have  been 
done  with  the  Government." 

While  my  negotiations  with  Mr.  Lansing  in  Washing- 
ton for  a  simultaneous  settlement  of  the  Arabic  and 
Lusitania  questions  were  still  in  progress,  a  memoran- 
dum was  handed  to  Mr.  Gerard,  the  American  Ambassa- 
dor in  Berlin,  which  purported  to  justify  the  action  of 
the  offending  submarine  commanders.  Thus  the  situation 
once  more  became  acute.  The  contents  of  this  document 
were  as  follows : 

"On  August  19th  a  German  submarine  held  up  the 
English  steamer  Dwele  about  sixty  miles  south  of 
Kinsale,  and  having  ordered  the  crew  to  leave  the  ship, 
were  about  to  sink  it  by  gun-fire  when  the  commander 
observed  a  large  steamer  heading  directly  towards  him. 
This  latter,  which  afterwards  proved  to  be  the  Arabic, 
bore  no  ensign,  or  other  marks  of  neutrality,  and  was 
thus  obviously  an  enemy.  Approaching  nearer,  she 
altered  her  original  course,  and  again  made  directly  for 
the  submarine,  thus  leading  the  commander  of  the  latter 
to  suppose  that  she  was  about  to  attack  and  ram  him. 
In  order  to  parry  this  attack,  the  submarine  dived  and 
fired  a  torpedo,  which  struck  the  ship.  The  submarine 
commander  observed  that  those  on  board  got  away  in 
fifteen  boats. 

"According  to  his  instructions,  the  German  commander 
was  authorized  to  attack  the  Arabic  without  warning,  and 
without  allowing  time  for  the  rescue  of  her  crew,  in  case 
of  an  attempt  at  flight  or  resistance.  The  action  of  the 
Arabic  undoubtedly  gave  him  good  grounds  for  suppos- 
ing that  an  attack  on  him  was  intended.  He  was  the 
more  inclined  to  this  belief,  by  the  fact  that  a  few  days 
before,  on  the  14th,  he  had  been  fired  at  from  long  range 


182       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

by  a  large  passenger  steamer,  apparently  belonging  to 
the  British  Royal  Mail  Steam  Packet  Company,  which 
he  saw  in  the  Irish  Sea,  but  which  he  had  made  no  attempt 
to  attack  or  hold  up. 

"The  German  Government  deeply  regrets  that  loss  of 
life  should  have  resulted  from  the  action  of  this  officer, 
and  it  desires  that  these  sentiments  should  be  conveyed 
more  particularly  to  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  as  American  citizens  were  among  the  missing. 
No  obligation  to  make  compensation  for  the  damage  done 
can,  however,  be  admitted,  even  on  the  hypothesis  that 
the  submarine  commander  mistook  the  intentions  of  the 
Arabic,  In  the  event  of  an  insoluble  difference  arising 
on  this  point  between  the  German  and  American  Govern- 
ments, the  German  Government  suggests  that  the  matter 
in  dispute  should  be  referred  to  the  Hague  Tribunal  as 
a  question  of  international  law,  in  accordance  with  Article 
38  of  the  Hague  convention  for  the  peaceful  solution"  of 
differences  between  nations;  but  it  can  do  so  only  with 
this  reservation,  that  the  arbitrator's  award  shall  not 
have  the  validity  of  a  general  decision  as  to  the  inter- 
national legality  or  otherwise  of  the  German  submarine 
warfare." 

The  following  three  reports  or  telegrams  dispatched  by 
me  to  the  Imperial  Chancellor  describe  the  situation  in 
Washington  at  this  juncture : 

(1)  CIPHER 

"Washington,  September  14tK,  1915. 
"L'ansing  has  given  me  permission  to  wire  you  by  this 
route,  without  the  messages  being  seen  by  him;  he  will 
also  forward  your  Excellency's  reply,  and  from  this  it 
appears  to  be  the  Government's  view,  that  any  further 
exchange  of  Notes,  the  subsequent  publication  of  which, 


THE  "AKABIC"  INCIDENT  183 

in  both  countries,  would  merely  involve  further  mis- 
understandings, is  bound  to  lead  to  a  breach.  It  considers 
the  present  system  of  confidential  negotiations  with  me 
as  the  only  promising  method  of  arriving  at  an  agree- 
ment. The  memorandum  on  the  Arabic  is  not  understood 
here,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  understood,  is  considered  to  be 
a  manifestation  of  German  bad  faith — a  sign  that  we  may 
perhaps  give  way  in  principle,  but  will  always  in  practice 
seek  to  evade  our  obligations  thus  incurred. 

"Lest  this  telegram  should,  by  its  length,  give  offence 
to  the  British,  Mr.  Lansing  is  forwarding  the  evidence  in 
the  Arabic  case  to  Mr.  Gerard  for  transmission  to  your 
Excellency;  he  is  himself  quite  convinced  that  the  sub- 
marine commander  was  not  compelled  in  self-defense  to 
torpedo  the  Arabic,  and  that  his  action  in  so  doing  was 
therefore  unjustified.  He  hopes  that  your  Excellency 
will,  after  study  of  the  evidence,  agree  with  him  in  this. 

"To  obtain  full  and  complete  agreement  it  is  first  of 
all  necessary  that  I  should  be  empowered  to  publish  in 
full  those  instructions  given  to  our  submarine  com- 
manders in  so  far  as  these  were  not  given  in  my  previous 
summaries  on  the  matter.  If  we  still  consider  ourselves 
bound  to  maintain  that  the  officer  concerned  in  the  Arabic 
case  was  only  obeying  orders,  we  can  never  hope  to  come 
to  an  agreement,  for  no  one  can  possibly  feel  any  con- 
fidence in  the  sincerity  of  our  intentions.  In  the  mean- 
time I  shall  try  to  reach  a  settlement  on  the  matters  now 
in  dispute  by  means  of  arbitration.  Finally,  the  question 
of  compensation  must,  in  accordance  with  my  instructions 
for  the  Lusitania  case,  be  referred  to  the  Hague  Tribunal. 

"I  am  quite  certain  that  if  we  fail  to  reach  an  agree- 
ment, severance  of  diplomatic  relations  cannot  but  follow. 

"Lansing  will  not  reply  to  the  Arabic  memorandum, 
and,  as  I  said  before,  will  conduct  the  diplomatic  ex- 
changes on  this  matter  only  through  me.  He  considers 


this  as  the  only  possible  course  on  the  ground  that  Wilson 
and  I  are  alike  committed  to  the  policy  of  'the  freedom 
of  the  seas.' 

"Finally,  I  may  observe  that  everyone  here  would  be 
much  gratified  if  we  could  see  our  way  to  extend  the  scope 
of  our  latest  instructions  to  our  submarines  so  as  to 
include  all  merchant  shipping.  It  is  argued  that  these 
vessels  are  slow  moving  and  could  easily  be  warned ;  the 
advantage  of  acting  without  warning  is  only  of  im- 
portance in  the  case  of  swift  passenger  ships,  which  we 
have,  none  the  less,  undertaken  not  to  attack  without 
notice.  The  suggested  proposal,  therefore,  could  not 
harm  us;  it  would,  on  the  other  hand,  make  us  very 
popular  here  and  give  the  United  States  a  very  strong 
position  in  her  negotiations  with  England.  Of  course,  I 
may  be  able  to  effect  an  agreement  without  this.  The 
main  point  in  dispute  is  the  verdict  on  the  action  of  the 
commander  in  the  Arabic  case,  because  this  involves  the 
whole  question  of  our  good  faith.  Anyway,  there  is  no 
doubt  whatever  that  a  second  'Arabic  case  is  bound  to 
result  in  war." 

(2)  CIPHER  TELEGRAM 
"Cedarhurst,  September  22nd,  1915. 
"As  position  is  still  very  difficult,  I  am  carrying  on  con- 
versations in  strict  confidence  through  personal  friend  of 
Wilson 's.  Bequest,  therefore,  that  no  directions  be  sent 
as  regards  question  of  responsibility  for  Arabic  incident, 
till  your  Excellency  hears  again  from  me.  Lansing  at 
present  gone  on  leave.  Personally  I  do  not  believe  that 
I  shall  manage  to  secure  International  Commission  of 
Inquiry.  According  to  present  view,  main  point  of  dis- 
pute is  question  of  disavowing  action  of  submarine  com- 
mander. I  hope,  however,  that  after  reviewing  American 
evidence,  your  Excellency  will  be  able  to  find  formula  for 


THE   "ARABIC"   INCIDENT  185 

snch  disavowal,  agreeable  to  both  Governments,  especially 
if  I  can  get  concurrence  of  Wilson  before  press  gets  hold 
of  it.  Request,  therefore,  that  American  correspondents 
in  Germany  be  told  nothing  more  than  that  American 
evidence  being  carefully  gone  into  in  Berlin. " 

(3)  CIPHER  REPORT 
"Cedarhurst,  September  28th,  1915. 

"The  negotiations  about  the  submarine  campaign  are 
at  a  standstill  at  present.  From  the  fact  that  Lansing 
has  not  been  recalled  from  leave  and  that  President 
Wilson  does  not  seem  over-eager  to  give  an  opinion  on 
the  proposals  which  I  have  put  forward  for  his  considera- 
tion, I  consider  myself  justified  in  concluding  that  the 
Americans  do  not  consider  the  situation  to  be  any  longer 
critical.  Even  the  Press  is  no  longer  agitated,  as  in 
all  recent  cases  of  attack  by  German  submarines.  Their 
commanders  have  acted  quite  in  accordance  with  our 
assurances.  Under  these  circumstances  Mr.  Wilson  may 
possibly  fall  in  with  our  proposal  that  the  particular  case 
of  the  Arabic  should  be  dealt  with  by  an  International 
Commission  of  Inquiry.  In  any  case,  some  means  must 
be  found  of  finishing  once  for  all  with  the  Arabic  and 
Lusitania  incidents ;  only  then  shall  we  be  in  a  position 
to  see  whether  President  Wilson  will  keep  his  word,  and 
take  energetic  measures  vis  d  vis  England. 

"The  Anglo-French  Loan  Commission,  assisted  by 
their  agency,  the  Morgan  group,  are  working  at  high 
pressure.  Stories  of  Allied  victories  in  Europe  are 
sedulously  spread  abroad  in  order  to  enlist  the  support  of 
public  opinion.  Despite  these  efforts  the  commission 
found  Chicago  so  invincibly  hostile  that  they  were  com- 
pelled to  proceed  there  in  person,  but  they  will  probably, 
in  any  case,  manage  to  raise  a  loan,  as  the  Morgan  group 


186        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

are  quite  strong  enough  for  the  purpose.  The  rate  of 
interest  they  are  demanding  is  very  high,  as  up  till  now 
they  have  financed  all  English  purchases  here.  By  these 
means,  they  are,  no  doubt,  making  considerable  profits, 
but  in  order  to  secure  them,  they  will,  of  course,  con- 
solidate their  floating  debt  and  unload  it  on  to  the  public. 
The  only  question  is  to  what  extent  they  will  be  able  to 
do  this.  Opinion  varies  as  to  the  size  of  England's 
present  debt;  a  prominent  banker  here,  in  close  touch 
with  the  Morgan  group,  estimated  the  total  to  500,000,000 
dollars ;  if  this  estimate  is  correct,  a  loan  of  500,000,000 
dollars  would  only  just  cover  the  liabilities  hitherto 
existing. 

"The  Morgan  group  certainly  had  to  make  two  great 
concessions :  first,  that  the  proceeds  of  the  new  loan  shall 
not  be  employed  for  the  purchase  of  munitions,  and 
second,  that  Russia  shall  be  excluded  from  the  loan ;  only 
by  these  means  could  they  overcome  the  opposition  of 
the  German- Americans  and  the  Jews.  Our  Jewish  friends 
here  are  in  no  easy  position.  Their  action,  or  rather  in- 
action, takes  the  form  of  what  is  commonly  known  as 
'egg-dancing,'  or  'pussyfooting';  they  wish  to  stand  well 
with  all  sides,  but  have  not  the  courage  of  their  convic- 
tions, and  are  very  anxious  to  make  money.  All  this 
is  very  easily  understood,  when  one  remembers  the  am- 
biguous position  of  these  gentlemen.  A  regular  devil's 
dance  around  the  '  Golden  calf  is  now  going  on  here.  All 
the  European  Governments  are  coming  to  buy  in  the 
American  market,  and  usually  paying  double  for  their 
goods,  as  they  only  purchase  what  they  urgently  need. 
One  lesson  we  may  learn  for  future  reference  from  the 
present  state  of  affairs,  and  that  is  that  we  must  not 
allow  ourselves  again  to  be  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
the  German-Jew  bankers  here.  After  the  war,  we  must 
have  branches  of  our  large  banks  in  New  York  just  as  we 


THE  "AKABIC"  INCIDENT  187 

have  in  London.  All  evidence  goes  to  show  that  New 
York  will  then  be  the  center  of  world-finance,  and  we 
should,  therefore,  take  all  steps  to  act.  on  this  assumption 
as  soon  as  possible." 

The  Foreign  Office  in  Berlin,  who  naturally  wished  to 
avoid  a  rupture  with  the  United  States,  accordingly  dis- 
patched to  me  the  following  telegraphic  instructions : 

"We  have  no  doubt  that  in  this  instance  submarine 
commander  believed  Arabic  intended  to  ram  and  had 
every  reason  for.  such  belief.  However,  German  Govern- 
ment prepared  to  give  credence  to  sworn  evidence  of 
English  officers  of  Arabic  and  agree  that  in  reality  no 
such  intention  existed. 

"Attack  of  submarine  thus  was  unfortunately  not  in 
accordance  with  instructions;  communication  to  this 
effect  will  be  made  to  commander.  German  Government 
is  for  sake  of  final  settlement  by  friendly  agreement  pre- 
pared without  admission  of  responsibility  from  point  of 
view  of  international  law,  to  give  indemnification  for 
death  of  American  citizens.  Your  Excellency  is  empow- 
ered to  notify  American  Government  of  above,  and  to 
negotiate  with  them  in  case  of  acceptance  concerning 
amount  of  compensation,  subject  to  our  concurrence. 
Confidently  expect  that  incident  will  thus  be  finally  liqui- 
dated, as  above  is  limit  of  possible  concessions." 

The  American  Government  during  verbal  negotiations 
with  me  on  this  matter  considered  it  essential  that  a , 
phrase  expressing  Germany's  disapproval  of  the  com- 
mander's action  should  be  incorporated  in  the  explana- 
tion which  I  proposed  to  publish.  I  was  not  sure 
whether  I  was  really  authorized  by  the  above  instructions 
to  comply  with  this  condition,  but  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  it  was  the  only  hope  of  avoiding  a  breach  and  further 


188        MY  THREE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

delay  in  the  negotiations  would  profit  us  nothing,  as  we 
were,  bound  to  make  some  sort  of  reply  to  the  American 
demand  within  a  certain  definite  time,  I  acted  once  more 
on.my  own  responsibility  and  gave  the  following  explana- 
tion to  Mr.  Lansing : 

"The  Government  of  his  Majesty  the  Kaiser,  in  its 
orders  with  which  I  previously  made  you  acquainted,  has 
so  framed  its  instructions  to  its  submarine1*  commanders 
as  to  avoid  any  repetition  of  incidents  such  as  that  of  the 
Arabic.  According  to  the  report  of  the  officer  who  sank 
the  Arabic  and  his  sworn  evidence,  together  with  that  of 
his  crew,  this  commander  believed  that  the  Arabic  in- 
tended to  ram  the  submarine.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Imperial  Government  does  not  desire  to  call  in  question 
the  good  faith  of  the  English  officers  of  the  Arabic,  who 
have  given  evidence  on  oath  that  the  Arabic  had  no  in- 
tention of  ramming.  The  action  of  the  submarine  was 
therefore  contrary  to  orders,  and  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment both  disapproves  of  it  and  regrets  it.  A  communi- 
cation to  this  effect  has  been  made  to  the  officer  in  ques- 
tion. Under  these  circumstances  my  Government  is 
prepared  to  give  compensation  far  the  lives  of  American 
subjects  drowned,  to  their  great  regret,  in  the  Arabic.  I 
am  empowered  to  discuss  with  you  the  amount  of  this 
compensation." 

The  above  explanation  finally  resolved  the  second 
crisis.  The  German  naval  authorities  naturally  com- 
plained of  my  action,  as  the  "disapproval"  stuck  in  their 
throats,  and  I  was  once  more  taken  to  task — a  matter 
which  weighed  little  with  me.  For  I  felt  that  my  inter- 
pretation of  the  instructions  from  the  Foreign  Office  was 
the  only  one  which  could  have  saved  us  from  war,  and 
that  now  the  road  was  open  for  the  final  settlement  of  the 


THE   "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  189 

Lusitania  incident  and  the  discussion  of  the  great  ques- 
tion of  "the  freedom  of  the  seas."  The  outlook  for  us 
was  most  promising.  Opinion  in  America  as  a  result  of 
the  solution  of  the  Arabic  question  was  once  more  favor- 
able to  us.  A  leading  American  paper,  the  New  York 
Sun,  said  at  this  time  in  its  leading  article : 

"The  successful  issue  of  the  conversations  with  Ger- 
many over  the  submarine  campaign  cannot  fail  to  be  of 
benefit  to  all  nations,  as  a  proof  of  the  possibilities  of 
diplomacy  as  against  war.  It  has  been  a  personal  tri- 
umph for  both  the  participants,  President  Wilson  and 
Count  Bernstorff." 

The  position  of  both  men  has  been  much  strengthened 
thereby,  and  what  they  have  already  achieved  is  no  doubt 
only  a  presage  of  still  greater  results  in  the  future. 

The  following  four  reports  to  the  Foreign  Office  deal 
with  the  settlement  of  the  Arabic  case: 

(1)  CIPHER 
"Cedarhurst,  October  6th,  1915. 

"The  settlement  of  the  Arabic  case  reported  to  your 
Excellency  in  my  wire,  has  caused  great  satisfaction  in 
all  circles  here.  Of  course  a  few  avowedly  Anglophile 
papers,  such  as  the  New  York  Herald  and  the  New  York 
Tribune,  reveal  the  cloven  hoof,  and  are  clearly  disap- 
pointed that  a  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  between 
America  and  Germany  has  been  averted ;  for  the  rest,  at 
no  time  since  the  outbreak  of  war  have  we  had  such  a 
good  Press  as  at  this  moment. 

"History  alone  will  be  in  a  position  to  say  whether  the 
settlement  of  the  Arabic  case  really  prevented  a  war  with 
the  United  States  or  not ;  but  your  Excellency  knows  my 


190       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

views  that  without  this  settlement  a  conflict  must  eventu- 
ally have  become  inevitable.  I  respectfully  submit  that 
the  preservation  of  peace  alone  was  a  sufficient  motive  to 
induce  us  to  come  to  terms ;  but  you  also  know  that  this 
was  by  no  means  my  sole  object.  I  wished  also  to  induce 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  to  take  energetic 
proceedings  against  England,  with  the  object  of  trans- 
lating into  fact  its  idea  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas.  I 
trust  we  shall  not  be  disappointed  in  this  regard,  and 
I  shall,  certainly,  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  keep  Mr. 
Wilson  on  the  right  path.  Whatever  may  be  one's  per- 
sonal opinion  of  the  President,  whether  one  believes  him 
to  be  really  neutrally-minded,  or  not,  his  great  services 
to  the  cause  of  peace  cannot  be  denied.  A  Republican 
President  would  certainly  not  have  stood  up,  as  he  has 
done,  against  the  united  forces  of  anti-Germanism  repre- 
sented by  Wall  Street,  the  Press,  and  so-called  Society. 
"At  the  present  moment  it  looks  as  if  the  American 
Government  are  ready  to  let  the  Lusitania  matter  drop 
altogether,  provided  we  agree  to  refer  the  question  of 
compensation  to  the  Hague  Tribunal  after  the  war.  The 
general  belief  here  is  that  judicial  proceedings  are  out  of 
the  question  during  the  continuance  of  hostilities.  At 
least  I  gather  as  much,  indirectly,  of  course,  from  one 
of  the  President's  friends." 

(2)  CIPHER 
"Cedarhurst,  October  15th,  1915. 

"I  much  regret  that  owing  to  a  mistake  on  the  part  of 
the  State  Department,  your  Excellency  was  not  earlier 
informed  of  the  settlement  of  the  submarine  question. 
Mr.  Lansing  left  my  letter,  which  should  have  accom- 
panied the  telegram,  in  his  writing-table  by  mistake,  for 
which  oversight  he  afterwards  apologized  to  me.  The 
Imperial  Embassy  was  in  no  way  to  blame. 


THE  "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  191 

"The  importance  attached  by  the  President,  from  the 
very  first,  to  those  main  points  on  which  we  were  unable 
to  make  concessions  rendered  the  task  of  arriving  at  an 
agreement  by  no  means  an  easy  one.  Thus  on  three  of 
the  most  important  points  no  agreement  has  been 
reached,  and  over  these  we  must,  for  the  present,  draw 
the  veil.  Only  a  few  of  the  most  rabid  of  the  pro-English 
papers  venture  openly  to  reproach  President  Wilson  with 
having  achieved  nothing  but  the  security  of  passenger- 
ships,  but  all  Americans  are  prepared  to  admit  in  con- 
fidence that  the  Government  has  completely  departed 
from  its  original  position. 

"The  three  important  questions  still  in  dispute,  as 
mentioned  above,  are  the  following: 

"(1)  The  German  Government's  responsibility  for 
American  lives  lost  in  the  torpedoing  of  British  ships. 

"  (2)  The  responsibility  for  the  payment  of  compensa- 
tion for  the  American  lives  so  lost. 

"(3)  The  American  demand  that  all  merchant  ships 
should  be  warned  by  our  submarines  before  being 
attacked. 

"This  demand  was  at  first  so  worded  as  to  imply  that 
submarines,  like  other  warships,  had  only  the  right  of 
search. 

"The  Government,  realizing  that  we  could  not  make 
concessions  on  the  above  three  points,  had  to  be  content 
with  our  admission  that  the  case  of  the  Arabic  should  be 
regarded  as  exceptional.  This  very  fact  rendered  it  im- 
possible to  reach  a  similar  settlement  in  the  case  of  the 
Lusitania,  in  which  no  error  on  the  part  of  the  submarine 
commander  concerned  could  be  adduced.  However,  the 
Government  seemed  to  be  only  too  satisfied  to  have  come 
so  well  out  of  their  difficulties,  and  have  no  wish  to  raise 


192        MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

any  further  obstacles  because  of  the  Lusitania  incident. 
This  matter,  as  I  have  already  had  the  honor  to  report, 
may  now  well  be  left  to  drag  on  indefinitely,  and  can  be 
referred  in  the  end  to  the  Hague  Tribunal  after  the  war. 
Our  Press  should,  therefore,  be  warned  that  further 
discussion  of  the  controversy  between  Germany  and 
America  over  the  submarine  campaign  is  undesirable  r> 

(3)  CIPHER 

"Cedarhurst,  October  20th,  1915. 

"Your  Excellency's  last  wireless  requested  me  to 
render  a  report  on  the  settlement  of  the  Arabic  question. 
I  have  already  complied  with  these  instructions,  and  the 
documents  are  now  on  their  way  to  you,  and  should  have 
reached  you.  However,  it  may  be  advisable  to  explain 
briefly  the  more  important  points  of  the  matter. 

"Prom  the  date  of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania, 
America  has  always  been  on  the  verge  of  breaking  off 
diplomatic  relations  with  us.  The  German  people,  I  am 
convinced,  have  no  idea  of  the  full  danger  of  the  situa- 
tion, at  least,  if  one  may  judge  from  our  Press.  On  two 
occasions  we  were  compelled  to  sacrifice  individuals  in 
order  to  avoid  a  breach,  Dernburg  and  Dumba  being  our 
scapegoats.  Their  mistakes  would  under  normal  circum- 
stances have  been  overlooked,  but  their  removal  was  at 
the  time  necessary  in  order  to  give  the  American  Govern- 
ment the  opportunity  of  showing  its  strength  without 
breaking  off  diplomatic  relations  with  us. 

"As  I  have  more  than  once  explained  in  my  reports, 
no  solution  of  the  Lusitania  question,  agreeable  to  the 
Americans,  could  be  found,  so  long  as  we  were  not  pre- 
pared to  admit  the  responsibility  of  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment for  the  disaster,  or  its  obligation  to  make  repara- 
tion, and  so  long  as  our  views  on  the  principles  of 


THE   "ARABIC"   INCIDENT  193 

submarine  warfare  differed  from  those  held  by  the 
American  Government. 

"By  dint  of  drawing  out  the  negotiations  as  long  as 
possible,  and  by  the  employment  of  all  my  persuasive 
powers,  I  succeeded  in  tiding  over  the  moment  of  acute 
tension.  Then  came  the  incident  of  the  Arabic.  My 
laboriously  constructed  diplomatic  edifice  came  tumbling 
about  my  ears,  and  things  looked  blacker  than  ever.  The 
American  Government  regarded  the  Arabic  incident  most 
seriously,  believing  as  they  did  that  it  was  typical  of  the 
whole  German  policy  vis-a-vis  America.  They  argued 
that  either  the  whole  affair  had  been  prearranged  as  a 
manifestation  of  our  intention  to  have  our  own  way  in 
the  matter  of  submarine  warfare,  or  else  it  was  a  blunder 
which  could  be  dealt  with  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
diplomacy.  Negotiation  became  possible  when  your  Ex- 
cellency notified  this  Government  that  satisfaction  would 
be  given  in  the  event  of  the  submarine  commander  being 
proved  to  have  acted  contrary  to  his  instructions. 
Further  negotiations  followed  on  this  basis,  and  it  was 
finally  agreed  that  we  should  admit  the  exceptional  nature 
of  the  Arabic  case,  without  yielding  our  ground  on  the 
main  points.  Such  agreement  would  have  been  im- 
possible had  President  Wilson  adhered  to  his  previous 
position,  but  he  wished  to  have  done  with  the  whole  busi- 
ness, and  could  only  do  so  by  throwing  dust  in  the  eyes  of 
the  American  public.  He  hoped  by  these  means  to  get  rid 
of  the  Lusitania  incident  unostentatiously,  and  told  me, 
through  one  of  his  personal  friends,  'to  let  it  drift.*  The 
idea  at  the  back  of  his  mind  is  that  it  shall  be  left  to  an 
international  tribunal  sitting  after  the  war,  to  decide 
whether  we  shall  pay  compensation  or  not. 

"The  only  really  important  question  as  regards  the 
settlement  of  the  Arabic  case,  is  whether  it  is  worth  while 
for  us  to  risk  a  rupture  of  relations  with  the  United 


194        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN  .AMERICA 

States,  for  the  sake  of  this  affair.  I  still  persist  in  my 
opinion,  that  it  would  infallibly  have  led  us  into  a  new 
war." 

(4)  CIPHER 

"  Washington,  1st  November,  1915. 

"Your  Excellency's  last  wire  on  the  matter  of  the  sub- 
marine campaign  raises  two  points  of  the  highest  im- 
portance. 

"First,  as  to  Wilson's  policy  of  the  ' freedom  of  the 
seas;'  this  has  been  the  idea  underlying  all  our  recent 
negotiations  over  the  submarine  warfare.  Our  agree- 
ment with  this  policy  has  been  constantly  emphasized  in 
all  my  conversations  with  leading  men  here ;  but  it  is  of 
course  necessary  carefully  to  choose  our  moment  for  the 
public  declaration  of  our  agreement  with  Wilson's  point 
of  view,  as  people  here  naturally  fear  that  if  England 
believes  us  to  be  behind  any  agitation  for  the  freedom  of 
the  seas  she  will  resist  it  all  the  more  firmly.  I  respect- 
fully recommend,  therefore,  that  we  should  leave  Mr. 
Wilson  to  carry  on  his  present  controversy  with  Eng- 
land, for  the  present  at  all  events,  unaided.  We  shall  lose 
nothing  by  so  doing,  and  if  an  opportunity  comes  for  our 
participation,  we  can  make  use  of  it. 

"After  this  expression  of  opinion,  let  me  pass  on  to  the 
second  point  I  have  always  clearly  stated  here,  that  we 
reserve  to  ourselves  full  liberty  of  decision,  if  England 
refuses  to  receive  our  advances.  At  present,  now  that 
the  Arabic  case  has  been  recognized  as  exceptional,  this 
*  freedom'  is  only  being  encroached  upon  from  one  direc- 
tion as  we  have  undertaken  not  to  sink  passenger  ships 
without  warning,  etc.  By  this  undertaking  we  must 
abide,  unless  we  wish  to  go  to  war  with  the  United  States 
of  America.  Any  future  destruction  of  passenger  ships 
with  Americana  on  board,  especially  if  such  took  place 


THE   "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  195 

without  warning,  and  with  the  approval  of  the  Imperial 
Government,  would  inevitably  cause  a  rupture." 

The  political  sky  in  the  United  States  was  thus  becom- 
ing more  propitious  day  by  day;  but  our  enemies'  exer- 
tions for  the  purpose  of  undermining  the  present  friendly 
relations,  redoubled  in  proportion^  The  German  Embassy 
became  the  chief  object  of  attack,  owing  to  the  fact  being 
clearly  realized  by  our  foes,  that  so  long  as  its  influence 
in  Washington  political  circles  remained  unimpaired,  no 
rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  could  be  hoped  for. 
Entente  diplomacy  left  no  stone  unturned  which  could  be 
of  service  against  us ;  lies,  robbery,  personal  defamation, 
gossip,  were  all  used  to  discredit  us. 

The  conduct  of  a  British  officer  on  duty  in  Washing- 
ton affords  a  good  example  of  the  unscrupulous  policy 
of  our  foes.  According  to  the  evidence  of  Dr.  Fuehr,  this 
gentleman,  now  holding  a  high  position  in  London,  at- 
tempted in  the  early  months  of  1916  to  corrupt  a  messen- 
ger of  our  Press  Bureau  in  New  York,  one  Alfred  Hoff, 
whose  daily  duty  it  was  to  take  newspaper  cuttings  to 
Councillor  Albert's  office.  Two  of  his  people  stopped 
this  boy  in  the  street  and  invited  him  to  the  British 
Consular  offices;  here  he  was  received  by  the  Cap- 
tain himself,  who  showed  him  a  bag  filled  with  bank 
notes,  and  promised  him  a  liberal  reward,  if  he  would 
undertake  to  obtain  some  letters  from  Dr.  Fuehr 's  desk. 
Hoff  pretended  to  fall  in  with  this  suggestion,  but  at  once 
informed  his  employer  of  the  incident.  The  Captain  then 
made  a  second  effort  to  bribe  Hoff  by  the  promise  of  a 
money  reward  for  every  document  from  the  Press 
Bureau,  and  also  a  ride  in  a  motor  for  the  letters  which  it 
was  his  duty  to  take  from  the  Bureau  to  the  German 
Embassy  at  Cedarhurst,  during  the  coming  summer.  One 
of  the  British  agents  told  Hoff  that  he  would  be  well  paid 
if  he  handed  over  the  letters  of  Dr.  Fuehr,  which  he  often 


196       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

used  to  seal  and  frank,  and  also  certain  other  documents 
of  a  specially  confidential  nature.  Dr.  Fuehr  finally  put 
an  end  to  this  unsavory  episode,  which  had  been  fully 
investigated  by  private  detectives,  by  publishing  a  de- 
tailed account  of  the  whole  affair  in  the  Hearst  papers. 
At  the  same  time  he  brought  the  matter  before  the  Public 
Prosecutor,  who,  however,  was  unwilling  to  interfere  in 
the  matter  unless  it  should  be  further  discussed  in  the 
Press.  This  limited  comprehension  of  duty  Dr.  Fuehr 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  agree  with. 

During  my  encounters  at  this  time  with  the  Entente, 
I  entirely  lost  any  respect  I  may  previously  have  felt  for 
their  moral  character,  which  was  reputed  to  be  so  high. 
I  came  then  to  realize  that  we  could  expect  nothing  better 
from  them  in  the  hour  of  our  defeat,  than  a  Peace  of 
Versailles,  which  would  make  of  no  account  all  their 
earlier  loftier  professions.  We,  in  Washington,  were 
therefore,  in  duty  bound,  to  strain  every  nerve  to  avert 
such  a  catastrophe  to  our  country.  Unfortunately  the 
activities  of  the  agents  dispatched  from  home  invariably 
deranged  our  plans  in  a  most  unfortunate  manner,  and, 
while  affording  our  foes  the  desired  opportunities  for 
damaging  our  cause,  achieved  nothing  of  advantage  in 
compensation.  The  English  Secret  Police,  and  all  the  de- 
tective agencies  of  the  United  States  which  were  in  their 
pay,  were  always  at  our  heels,  endeavoring  to  establish 
some  collusion  on  the  part  of  the  German  Embassy  in 
these  isolated  cases  of  sabotage.  However,  all  this  sub- 
terranean plotting  and  counter-plotting  was  but  so  much 
lost  labor.  It  was  the  decision  on  the  policy  of  continuing 
or  not  continuing  the  submarine  campaign  which  finally 
turned  the  scale. 

At  the  beginning  of  August  one  of  these  agents  man- 
aged to  steal  a  portfolio  of  documents  from  Councillor 
Albert  while  he  was  traveling  on  the  New  York  elevated 


THE   "ABABIC"  INCIDENT  197 

railway,  and  its  contents  were  published  in  the  World 
from  the  15th  of  August  onwards.  "We  always  thought 
the  perpetrator  of  this  theft  was  an  Entente  agent,  but 
it  now  appears  from  Senator  Frelinghuysen's  evidence 
before  the  Senate  Committee  of  Enquiry  on  13th  July, 
1919,  that  the  guilty  individual  was  really  a  member  of 
the  American  Secret  Police.  It  would  certainly  have 
been  an  unheard-of  thing  for  an  American  agent  to  have 
robbed  a  member  of  .the  diplomatic  corps  and  sold  the 
proceeds  of  his  deed  to  the  Press.  Probably  what  really 
happened  was  that  the  man  was  in  the  pay  of  the  Entente* 
The  investigations  at  the  Senate  Committee  disclosed  a 
number  of  cases  of  corruption  and  theft  which  the  agents 
of  the  Entente  did  not  scruple  to  use  in  their  efforts  to 
compromise  and  discredit  the  German  Embassy;  so  this 
supposition  is  in  itself  by  no  means  improbable.  The 
affair  was  merely  a  storm  in  a  tea-cup;  the  papers  as 
published  afforded  no  evidence  of  any  action  either  illegal 
or  dishonorable;  otherwise  the  American  Government 
would  certainly  have  demanded  the  recall  of  Albert  as 
they  did  later  in  other  cases.  The  Press  manufactured 
a  considerable  sensation  out  of  the  contents  of  the  port- 
folio, but  generally  speaking  the  efforts  of  the  Entente 
in  this  affair  proved  completely  without  effect. 

The  Entente  agents,  however,  were  more  successful  in 
their  next  attack,  to  which  the  Austro-Hungarian  Am- 
bassador fell  a  victim.  Dumba  had  already  in  the  winter 
of  1914-15  recommended  to  me  the  American  war  corre- 
spondent James  Archibald,  who  had  been  at  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Front,  as  having  German  sympathies.  There- 
upon I  also  recommended  this  gentleman  in  Berlin,  where 
he  was  granted  all  facilities.  In  the  summer  of  1915 
Archibald  returned  to  America,  to  lecture  on  his  experi- 
ences. As  he  was  anti-Entente,  these  lectures  brought  us 
financial  profit,  and  therefore  we  paid  Archibald's  travel- 


198       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

ing  expenses.  At  the  beginning  of  September,  1915,  he 
went  once  more  to  Europe,  and  dined  on  the  eve  of  his 
departure  with  Dumba  and  myself  on  the  roof-garden  of 
the  Ritz-Carlton  Hotel  in  New  York.  By  this  means  our 
personal  connection  with  Archibald  was  openly  recog- 
nized. The  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador,  confiding  in 
his  character  and  his  American  nationality,  gave  him 
certain  political  reports  which  were  not  even  in  cipher,  to 
take  to  Vienna.  Archibald  had  also  offered  to  take 
papers  to  Berlin  for  me.  I,  however,  declined  with 
thanks,  as  I  scented  danger,  and  I  would  have  warned 
Dumba  also,  if  I  had  known  that  he  intended  to  entrust 
dispatches  to  Archibald.  The  English  seized  the  latter 
in  Kirkwall  and  took  away  all  his  papers. 

Since  then  I  have  never  set  eyes  on  Archibald,  and  I 
could  not  help  suspecting  that  there  was  something  un- 
canny about  the  case.  By  arresting  Archibald  the  Eng- 
lish undoubtedly  thought  they  would  compromise  me.  I 
cannot  prove  that  there  was  anything  wrong  with  Archi- 
bald, but  in  all  the  circumstances  he  could  easily  have 
destroyed  the  papers,  had  he  wished  to  do  so.  In  the 
meanwhile  a  report  was  found  among  the  dispatches  of 
the  Austro-Hungarian  Ambassador  transmitting  to  his 
Government  a  memorandum  from  the  Hungarian  jour- 
nalist, Warm.  In  this  note  Warm  recommended  propa- 
ganda to  induce  a  strike  among  the  Hungarian  workers 
in  arms  and  munitions  factories,  and  demanded  money 
for  this  object. 

The  statement  of  Dumba 's  report  that  the  Ambassador 
had  shown  the  suggestion  to  Captain  von  Papen,  who  had 
thought  it  very  valuable,  was  very  compromising  for  us. 

The  German  Military  Attache  was  therefore  placed  in 
an  awkward  position;  the  letter  contained  several  other 
blazing  indiscretions.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  one  paper 
Dumba  described  President  Wilson  as  self-willed,  and 


THE   "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  199 

von  Papen  in  a  letter  to  his  wife  spoke  of  the  "imbecile 
Yankees." 

As  I  previously  mentioned,  the  position  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  Ambassador  was  much  shaken  by  the  Dumba- 
Bryan  episode.  His  defence,  that  he  had  only  forwarded 
the  note  of  an  Hungarian  journalist,  without  identifying 
himself  with  it,  was  not  favorably  received  by  the  Ameri- 
can Government.  A  few  days  later  his  passport  was 
presented  to  him;  at  the  same  time  the  Entente  granted 
him  a  safe  conduct. 

Previous  to  his  departure  from  New  York  similar 
scenes  took  place  to  those  which  followed  the  sinking  of 
the  Lusitania. 

The  Hotel  St.  Eegis,  in  which  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Ambassador  lived,  was  surrounded  day  and  night  by  in- 
numerable reporters. 

When  I  called  on  him  there  to  take  leave  of  him,  I  had 
to  make  use  of  a  back  entrance  to  the  hotel  in  order  to 
avoid  numerous  impertinent  questions.  Dumba  himself 
was  followed  at  every  step  by  reporters,  who  among 
other  things  often  chased  him  for  hours  on  end  in 
motor-cars. 

'  In  the  meanwhile  Rintelen  (mentioned  in  the  fifth 
chapter)  had  been  taken  prisoner  in  England.  Further, 
the  case  of  Fay  led  to  a  disagreeable  discussion  in  pub- 
lic, and  lastly  action  was  taken  against  the  Hamburg- 
Amerika  Line  for  supplying  our  squadron  of  cruisers 
with  coal  and  provisions.  Thus  it  was  easy  for  the  En- 
tente agents  to  establish  connection  between  these  offen- 
ders and  the  Military  and  Naval  Attaches  of  the  German 
Embassy.  How  far  these  gentlemen  were  really  im- 
plicated I  did  not  know  at  the  time,  nor  do  I  now.  In  this 
they  must  plead  their  own  case.  As  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned both  gentlemen  always  denied  that  they  in  any 
way  transgressed  against  the  American  law.  It  cannot, 


200       MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

however,  be  denied  that  they  were,  in  fact,  compromised 
by  their  relations  with  these  guilty  parties ;  I  do  not  think 
that  anything  beyond  this  can  be  authenticated. 

Captain  von  Papen's  reputation,  therefore,  suffered 
from  the  time  of  the  Dumba- Archibald  incident ;  both  he 
and  Captain  Boy-Ed  were  constantly  attacked  in  the  anti- 
German  Press,  and  accused  of  being  behind  every  fire 
and  every  strike  in  any  munition  factory  in  the  United 
States.  The  New  York  Herald  and  the  Providence 
Journal  took  the  leading  parts  in  this  business.  At  the 
same  time  a  campaign  was  begun  against  the  German- 
Americans,  who  were  accused  of  being  practically  without 
exception  disloyal  citizens  of  the  United  States.  All  the 
various  incidents,  accusations,  so-called  conspiracies,  etc., 
were  grist  to  the  Entente's  mill,  and  were  exploited  to 
the  full.  Congress  was  about  to  assemble,  and  it  was 
therefore  to  be  expected  that  the  Government  would  take 
steps  to  strengthen  its  position. 

Mr.  Lansing  asked  me  on  1st  December  to  call  on  him 
and  informed  me  that  the  American  Government  had  re- 
quested that  von  Papen  and  Boy-Ed  should  be  recalled, 
as  they  were  no  longer  persona  grata! 

To  my  inquiry  as  to  the  reasons  for  this  action,  Lansing 
refused  to  reply;  he  merely  remarked  that  any  Govern- 
ment was  within  its  rights  in  simply  stating  that  a  mem- 
ber of  a  diplomatic  corps  was  not  persona  grata.  In  the 
course  of  further  conversation,  however,  I  discovered  one 
thing  at  least,  that  Capt.  Boy-Ed  was  supposed  to  have 
been  conspiring  with  the  Mexican  General  Huerta — an 
obviously  baseless  charge,  considering  that  Boy-Ed  had 
never  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  ex-President.  It  is 
true,  however,  that  Rintelen  had  had  dealings  with 
Huerta,  and  it  was  known  that  Rintelen  had  received 
from  Boy-Ed  the  sum  of  half  a  million  dollars  previously 
mentioned. 


THE   " ARABIC"   INCIDENT  201 

My  first  message — written  in  English — to  Berlin  on 
this  affair  ran  as  follows : 

CIPHER  MESSAGE 

"  Washington,  4th  December,  1915. 
"In  an  official  Note  of  to-day 's  date  American  Govern- 
ment, as  stated  in  previous  conversations  with  me, 
request  immediate  recall  of  Military  and  Naval  Attaches, 
on  the  ground  of  various  facts  brought  to  notice  of  Gov- 
ernment, particularly  implication  of  these  Attaches  in 
illegal  and  doubtful  activities  of  certain  individuals 
within  United  States.  Government  deeply  regrets  neces- 
sity for  this  step,  and  trusts  Imperial  Government  will 
understand  that  no  other  course  seems  to  them  to  be 
compatible  with  the  interests  of  the  two  Governments 
and  their  reciprocal  friendly  relations. " 

I  also  telegraphed  as  follows  to  my  Government  on 
September  5th: 

"Explanations  of  von  Papen  and  Boy-Ed  herewith  as 
requested  by  Military  and  Naval  Authorities : 

"  *  State  Department  request  my  recall.  Reasons  for 
this  given  to  Ambassador.  Case  of  Stegler  and  my  two 
supposed  meetings  with  Huerta.  Stegler  case  settled 
since  March.  Stegler  in  matter  of  his  pass  proved  a  liar. 
Had  nothing  to  do  with  his  transactions;  not  the  least 
proof  that  I  ever  had;  see  my  report  No.  4605,  March 
20th,  and  others.  I  have  never  in  my  life  met  Huerta; 
I  have  never  concerned  myself  with  Mexican  affairs  in 
any  way;  I  have  never  to  my  knowledge  acted  contrary 
to  the  interests  or  laws  of  the  United  States.  Conjectures 
and  absurd  newspaper  stories  about  me  result  of  English 


202        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

influence  and  money.    Must  therefore  request  my  recall 
be  considered  unjustifiable. 

"  'BOY-ED.' 

"  'No  illegal  action  can  be  laid  to  my  charge;  demand 
for  recall  unjustified.  Importance  of  military  interests  of 
our  enemies  here  renders  necessary  effective  representa- 
tion of  Central  Powers,  so  long  as  America  officially 
neutral.  Therefore  it  should  be  insisted  on  that  Ameri- 
can Government  secure  safe-conduct  for  my  successor. 


In  view  of  the  approaching  session  of  Congress,  the 
Government,  on  December  5th,  published  the  fact  that 
they  had  demanded  the  recall  of  the  Attaches.  This  fact, 
with  slight  foundation  for  the  American  Government's 
suspicions,  made  a  bad  impression  in  Berlin;  I  went, 
therefore,  to  see  Mr.  Lansing  on  December  8th,  and  ob- 
tained from  him  this  letter  : 

"As  I  have  already  stated,  the  demand  for  recall  of  the 
two  Attaches  of  your  Embassy  was  made  as  a  result  of 
the  careful  investigation  of  a  number  of  facts  and  cir- 
cumstances, which  convinced  this  Government  that  they 
could  no  longer  consider  these  two  officers  as  persona 
grata,  and  that  their  continued  residence  in  the  United 
States  was,  therefore,  no  longer  compatible  with  diplo- 
matic propriety.  This  being  the  considered  and  deliber- 
ate view  of  this  Government,  it  would  seem  that  the  mere 
fact  of  Captains  von  Papen  and  Boy-Ed  being  no  longer 
acceptable,  should  have  been  sufficient  justification  for 
their  immediate  recall  by  the  German  Government  with- 
out further  discussion.  The  expectations  of  the  United 
States  Government,  in  this  respect,  were  in  accordance 
with  all  diplomatic  precedent  in  cases  where  such  requests 


THE   "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  203 

have  been  made,  and  there  seemed  to  be,  therefore,  no 
reason  why  this  demand  should  hare  been  kept  a  secret. 
It  is  regretted  that  the  Imperial  Government  should  have 
regarded  the  publication  of  the  American  request  as  an 
act  of  discourtesy  towards  itself.  The  United  States 
Government  does  not  share  this  view  of  its  action,  and, 
therefore,  cannot  be  expected  to  express  its  regret  for 
having  acted  as  it  has  done. 

"This  Government  is  surprised  that  the  Imperial 
Government  should  not  have  complied  at  once  with  its 
request  for  the  recall  of  the  two  Attaches,  who  are  no 
longer  persona  grata  here.  It  seems  to  me  obvious  that 
whatever  may  have  been  the  reasons  for  such  request,  it 
is  for  this  Government,  and  not  for  the  German  Govern- 
ment, to  say  whether  the  charges  alleged  against  the 
members  of  a  German  diplomatic  mission  appear  suffi- 
ciently well-founded  to  justify  action  such  as  that  now 
taken.  In  other  words,  the  causes  of  the  demand  arer 
legitimate  and  sufficient,  as  being  based  on  suppositions 
or  suspicions  of  undesirable  activities  on  the  part  of  these 
two  officers. 

"In  any  case,  the  fact  remains,  that  Boy-Ed  and  von 
Papen  are  no  longer  acceptable  to  this  Government. 

"As  I  already  apprised  you  by  word  of  mouth,  and  in 
my  letter  of  4th  of  this  month,  the  relations  of  the  two 
Attaches  with  individuals  who  participated  in  illegal  and 
questionable  activities,  are  established.  The  names  of 
von  Wedell,  Rintelen,  Stegler,  Burode,  Archibald  and  Fay 
may  be  mentioned  as  some  of  those  who  have  transgressed 
against  our  laws.  I  could  also  name  other  men  and  cite 
other  examples  of  their  activities,  but  as  these  are  at 
present  the  object  of  an  official  inquiry,  I,  by  this  means, 
should  only  prevent  the  arrest  of  those  who  violated  our 
laws  and  still  continue  to  violate  them. 

"Although  I  have  already  said  that  this  Government 


204        MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

does  not  want  to  do  anything  further  than  to  request  the 
recall  of  Boy-Ed  and  von  Papen,  since  they  are  no 
longer  persona  grata,  I,  nevertheless,  do  not  desire  to  go 
beyond  the  above  declaration;  so  that  your  Government 
may  be  in  a  position  to  institute  an  inquiry  into  the 
manner  of  dealing  with  your  Attaches,  should  it  wish  to 
do  so.  If  I  should  go  into  further  details  on  this  matter  I 
might  interfere  with  the  inquiry  which  is  now  being  taken 
up  by  this  Government,  dry  up  very  valuable  sources  of 
information,  and  thus  hinder  the  course  of  justice.  On 
the  other  hand  there  might  thus  be  raised  other  grounds 
for  suspicion,  serving  rather  to  disturb  than  to  improve 
the  present  friendly  relations  between  the  two  countries. 
I  need  not  tell  your  Excellency,  that  it  is  the  sincere  wish 
of  this  Government  to  avoid  difficulties  of  this  kind,  so 
far  as  may  be  consistent  with  its  dignity  and  its  respon- 
sibilities." 

Besides  dispatching  a  copy  of  the  above  letter,  I  wired 
to  Berlin  on  8th  December,  as  follows : 

CIPHER 

"Convinced  that  Rintelen  is  the  main  cause  of  the 
Attaches'  recall.  Immediate  categorical  disavowal  is 
absolutely  necessary.  Only  possible  connection  with  us 
is  matter  of  500,000  dollars,  received  from  the  Naval 
Attache  and  demanded  for  the  exportation  of  goods. " 

Thereupon  I  received  the  following  wireless  message  in 
English : 

CIPHER 

"You  are  empowered  to  disclaim  connection  with 
Rintelen,  who  had  no  orders  to  do  anything  whatsoever, 
which  was  an  offence  against  the  American  law. 

"JAGOW." 


THE   "ARABIC"  INCIDENT  205 

The  peculiar  relations  of  the  Naval  and  Military 
Attaches  with  the  Embassy  had,  even  in  times  of  peace, 
often  led  to  diplomatic  difficulties.  For  instance,  it  has 
often  happened  to  us  and  to  other  countries  to  have  to 
recall  Military  or  Naval  Attaches  for  spying.  The  diplo- 
matic standing  of  the  head  of  the  Mission  would  not 
generally  be  affected  thereby,  but,  in  view  of  the  passions 
of  wartime,  and  the  general  tension  of  nerves,  I  realized 
that  I  might  be  compromised  by  the  demand  for  the  recall 
of  the  Attaches.  I  questioned  Lansing  outright  on  this 
point,  and  added  that  I  should  immediately  hand  in  to 
my  Government  my  resignation,  if  I  was  considered  to 
be  myself  "tarred  with  the  same  brush. "  The  Secretary 
of  State  assured  me  that  I  was  by  no  means  involved,  and 
that  I  should  not  on  any  account  give  up  my  post,  since 
I  had  to  carry  on  the  momentous  negotiations  now  in 
course,  and  the  American  Government  had  full  confidence 
in  me.  Under  the  circumstances  I  saw  no  reason  why  the 
enforced  recall  of  the  Attaches  should  have  any  further 
results,  and  I  was  confirmed  in  this  view  a  few  days  later 
when  House  repeated  to  me  Lansing's  assurance  with 
even  greater  emphasis.  His  exact  words  were  as  follows : 

"You  must  not  dream  of  going  home  before  peace  is 
declared.  You  are  the  one  tie  that  still  binds  us  to  Ger- 
many. If  this  tie  should  break,  war  would  be  inevitable. " 

Both  Attaches  returned  to  Berlin  under  safe-conduct 
from  the  Entente  at  the  end  of  December,  1915.  Their 
offices  were  taken  over  by  their  representatives,  but  only 
for  the  purpose  of  settling  up  any  outstanding  matters. 

At  the  beginning  of  1916,  there  was  in  the  United 
States  no  single  German  organization  which  merited  the 
name  of  "propaganda."  Thus  no  activities  which  could 
compromise  us  in  any  way  ensued  henceforward. 


206        MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

The  political  situation  had  become  so  serene  that  we 
had  no  need  for  propaganda.  The  pacifist  elements  in  the 
United  States  did  this  work  for  ns.  The  only  question 
was  as  to  whether  we  would  remain  really  at  one  with 
them,  or  whether  we  meant  to  persist  in  submarine  war- 
fare, which  must  inevitably  lead  us  into  war. 

President  Wilson  opened  Congress  on  7th  December, 
1915,  with  a  message,  in  which  he  set  forth  the  new  pro- 
gramme for  national  defence.  ' 'Preparedness"  became 
the  order  of  the  day  in  the  United  States.  The  message 
demanded  that  the  Army  and  Navy  should  be  increased, 
and  added: 

"The  urgent  question  of  our  mercantile  and  passenger 
shipping  is  closely  connected  with  the  problem  of  national 
supply.  The  full  development  of  our  national  industries, 
which  is  of  such  vital  importance  to  the  nation,  pressing- 
ly  calls  for  a  large  commercial  fleet.  It  is  high  time  to 
make  good  our  deficiencies  OB  this  head  and  to  restore 
the  independence  of  our  commerce  on  the  high  seas." 

In  this  message  may  be  recognized  the  second  im- 
portant point  in  the  Presidential  programme  for  the  next 
election.  "Peace  and  Preparedness"  was  to  be  the 
battle-cry  of  the  Democratic  Party.  The  Mexican  im- 
broglio of  1913-14  had  proved  that  the  armed  forces  of 
the  United  States  were  unequal  even  to  the  demands  of 
a  comparatively  small  campaign ;  and  the  American  Gov- 
ernment, for  lack  of  means,  had  been  unable  to  impose  its 
will  on  Mexico.  Now  the  European  War  stirred  all  im- 
aginations and  offered  a  favorable  occasion  for  over- 
coming the  prejudices  of  the  pacifist  section  against  mili- 
tary armaments.  It  was  not  so  long  since  the  song  "I 
didn't  raise  my  boy  to  be  a  soldier,"  was  sung  with 
fervor  all  the  land  over;  but  now  events  had  too  clearly 
proved  the  powerlessness  of  any  but  well-armed  nations 


THE   "ARABIC"   INCIDENT  207 

even  to  follow  their  own  lines  of  policy ;  and  the  necessity 
of  a  mercantile  marine  of  their  own  grew  daily  clearer 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Hitherto  the  Ameri- 
cans had  always  found  enough  of  foreign  vessels  for  the 
transport  of  their  goods,  had  found  it  cheaper  to  make 
use  of  these  facilities  than  to  supply  their  own  under  the 
conditions  existing  in  the  States.  Now,  however,  the 
shortage  of  merchant  tonnage  was  acute,  and  American 
goods  were  piled  roof  high  in  all  the  warehouses  of  New 
York  harbor.  It  was  clear  that  now  or  never  was  the 
time  to  seize  the  chance  afforded  by  the  war  of  persuading 
Congress  to  sanction  the  provision  of  a  strong  Army  and 
Fleet. 

The  Presidential  message  also  touched  on  the  "con- 
spiracies," but  without  any  mention  of  the  German 
Embassy's  supposed  share  in  them.  The  period  of  these 
so-called  "conspiracies"  thus  closed  with  a  sharp  repri- 
mand addressed  by  Mr.  Wilson  to  the  German- Americans, 
and  with  my  official  recommendation  to  the  Germans  in 
the  United  States  to  abstain  from  all  forms  of  illegal 
action.  The  after-effects  of  this  period,  however,  may  be 
traced  in  the  subsequent  lengthy  trials  of  the  various 
offenders.  I  cannot  be  sure  that  since  the  beginning  of 
1916,  not  one  single  incident  which  could  be  comprised 
under  the  term  "conspiracy"  came  to  light;  but  these 
trials  and  Entente  propaganda  kept  the  recollection  of 
such  affairs  alive,  and  the  American  war  propaganda 
service  had  no  difficulty  subsequently  in  retelling  the  old 
tales  which,  but  for  the  entry  of  the  United  States  into 
the  war,  would  have  passed  into  oblivion. 

The  paragraphs  of  the  message  dealing  with  this  sub- 
ject ran  as  follows : 

"We  are  at  peace  with  all  the  nations  of  the  world,  and 
there  is  reason  to  hope  that  no  question  in  controversy 


208        MY   THEEE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

between  this  and  other  Governments  will  lead  to  any 
serious  breach  of  amicable  relations,  grave  as  some  dif- 
ferences of  attitude  and  policy  have  been  and  may  yet 
turn  out  to  be.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the  gravest  threats 
against  our  national  peace  and  safety  have  been  uttered 
within  our  own  borders.  There  are  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  I  blush  to  admit,  born  under  other  flags,  but  wel- 
comed under  our  generous  naturalization  laws  to  the  full 
freedom  and  opportunity  of  America,  who  have  poured 
the  poison  of  disloyalty  into  the  very  arteries  of  our 
national  life ;  who  have  sought  to  bring  the  authority  and 
good  name  of  our  Government  into  contempt,  to  destroy 
our  industries  wherever  they  thought  it  effective  for  their 
vindictive  purposes  to  strike  at  them,  and  to  debase  our 
politics  to  the  uses  of  foreign  intrigue.  Their  number  is 
not  great  as  compared  with  the  whole  number  of  those 
sturdy  hosts  by  which*  our  nation  has  been  enriched  in 
recent  generations  out  of  virile  foreign  stocks ;  but  it  is 
great  enough  to  have  brought  .deep  disgrace  upon  us  and 
to  have  made  it  necessary  that  we  should  promptly  make 
use  of  processes-  of  law  .by  which  we  may  be  purged  of 
their  corrupt.distempers. 

"But  the  ugly  and  incredible  thing  has  actually  come 
about  and  we  are  without  adequate  federal  laws  to  deal 
with  it.  I  urge  you  to  enact  such  laws  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment,  and  feel  that  in  doing  so  I  am  urging 
you  to  do  nothing  les?  than  save  the  honor  and  self-respect 
of  the  nation.  Such  creatures  of  passion,  disloyalty  and 
anarchy  must  be  crushed  out.  They  are  not  many,  but 
they  are  infinitely  malignant,  and  the  hand  of  our  power 
should  close  over  them  at  once.  They  have  formed  plots 
to  destroy  property,  they  have  entered  into  conspiracies 
against  the  neutrality  of  the  Government,  they  have 
sought  to  pry  into  every  confidential  transaction  of  the 
Government  in  order  to  serve  interests  alien  to  our  own. 


THE   "ABABIC"   INCIDENT  209 

It  is  possible  to  deal  with  these  things  very  effectually.  I 
need  not  suggest  the  terms  in  which  they  may  be  dealt 
with." 

The  message,  up  to  a  point,  maintained  an  impartial 
attitude,  for  it  not  only  blamed  the  German- Americans 
but  continued  in  the  following  words,  aimed  solely  at  the 
many  Americans  in  London  and  Paris  who  disapproved 
of  Wilson's  policy  of  peace  and  neutrality: 

"I  wish  that  it  could  be  said  that  only  a  few  men,  misled 
by  mistaken  sentiments  of  allegiance  to  the  governments 
under  which  they  were  born,  had  been  guilty  of  disturb- 
ing the  self-possession  and  misrepresenting  the  temper 
and  principles  of  the  country  during  these  days  of  terrible 
war,  when  it  would  seem  that  every  man  who  was  truly 
an  American  would  instinctively  make  it  his  duty  and 
his  pride  to  keep  the  scales  of  judgment  even  and  prove 
himself  a  partisan  of  no  nation  but  his  own.  But  it  can- 
not. There  are  some  men  among  us,  and  many  resident 
abroad  who,  though  born  and  bred  in  the  United  States 
and  calling  themselves  Americans,  have  so  forgotten 
themselves  and  their  honor  as  citizens  as  to  put  their 
passionate  sympathy  with  one  or  the  other  side  in  the 
great  European  conflict  above  their  regard  for  the  peace 
and  dignity  of  the  United  States.  They  also  preach  and 
practise  disloyalty.  No  laws,  I  suppose,  can  reach  cor- 
ruptions of  the  mind  and  heart ;  but  I  should  not  speak 
of  others  without  also  speaking  of  these  and  expressing 
the  even  deeper  humiliation  and  scorn  which  every  self- 
possessed  and  thoughtfully  patriotic  American  must  feel 
when  he  thinks  of  them  and  of  the  discredit  they  are  daily 
bringing  upon  us." 

About  the  turn  of  the  year  1915-16,  the  severance  of 
diplomatic  relations  between  the  American  and  Austro- 


Hungarian  Governments  had  become  imminent.  The 
Italian  liner  Ancona  was  torpedoed  on  November  7th  in 
the  Mediterranean  Sea  by  an  Austro-Hnngarian  sub- 
marine, and  went  down  before  all  the  passengers  could 
succeed  in  escaping;  many  lives  were  lost,  American 
citizens  being  among  them.  In  consequence,  the  Wash- 
ington Government  dispatched  to  Vienna  a  Note  couched 
in  far  stronger  terms  than  any  it  had  yet  sent ;  demand- 
ing that  the  action  should  be  admitted  to  be  unlawful  and 
inexcusable,  that  compensation  should  be  made,  and  that 
the  officer  responsible  should  be  punished  for  his  deed, 
which  would  be  branded  by  the  whole  world  as  inhuman 
and  barbarous,  and  would  incur  the  abhorrence  of  all 
civilized  nations. 

The  Austro-Hungarian  representative,  Baron  Zwiede- 
neck  von  Suedenhorst,  found  himself  in  an  extremely 
difficult  position.  Owing  to  the  fact  that  he  only  ranked 
as  charge  d'affaires,  and  that  his. appointment  only  dated 
from  Dr.  Dumba's  departure,  he  was  not  empowered  to 
enter  into  negotiations.  He  had  always  proved  himself 
a  very  loyal  colleague  and  acted  in  close  co-operation  with 
me,  but  in  this  instance,  as  the  matter  was  one  solely  for 
Vienna's  decision,  I  could  be  of  little  service  to  him.  I 
counselled  him  to  telegraph  frankly  to  his  Government, 
that  if  the  American  demands  were  not  conceded,  a  breach 
was  to  be  expected.  I  was  myself  inclined  to  believe  that, 
as  in  the  case  of  our  Naval  and  Military  Attaches,  Mr. 
Wilson's  real  purpose  was  to  give  the  lie  to  those  accusa- 
tions of  weakness  which  the  Entente  party  was  constantly 
casting  in  his  teeth,  and  this,  I  thought,  accounted  for  the 
unwonted  sternness  of  the  American  Note,  which  seemed 
absolutely  to  challenge  a  rupture.  It  was  not  conceivable 
that  the  Austrian  Government  could  swallow  this  bitter 
pill,  while  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  American  Gov- 
ernment, the  breaking-off  of  relations  would  be  a  real 


THE   "AEABIC"   INCIDENT  211 

diplomatic  victory ;  for  on  the  one  hand  the  political  sit- 
uation would  remain  unchanged  so  long  as  the  German 
Embassy  was  in  Washington,  and  on  the  other  hand,  Mr. 
Wilson  would  have  achieved  his  object  and  shown  the 
Berlin  Government  that  his  threats  of  war  were  seriously 
meant 

However,  the  Austro-Hungarian  Government,  after  a 
short  further  exchange  of  Notes,  complied  under  protest 
with  the  American  demands.  I  learned  after  my  return 
home  that  in  so  doing,  they  acted  under  pressure  from 
the  German  Foreign  Office.  Thus,  this  crisis  also  blew 
over,  not,  however,  without  a  serious  loss  of  prestige  for 
the  Central  Powers,  who  had  been  compelled  to  yield  to 
demands  generally  regarded  as  utterly  unacceptable. 
Nothing  could  be  more  fatal  to  our  position  in  the  world 
than  this  alternation  of  defiance  and  submission,  which 
served  no  diplomatic  object  and  merely  betrayed  infirmity 
of  purpose. 


CHAPTER 
THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS 

IN  Germany,  and  particularly  before  the  Committee  of 
the  National  Assembly,  the  American  Government  has 
been  reproached  with  mala  fides  for  having  unnecessarily 
reopened  the  Lusitania  question.  The  line  of  argument 
is  approximately  as  follows: 

After  the  settlement  of  the  Arabic  case  one  can  suspect 
the  obstinate  harping  on  the  Lusitania  affair,  which  had 
really  died* down,  as  a  sign  of  mala  fides.  Did  the  Ameri- 
cans want  to  secure  a  fresh  diplomatic  success  against  us  ? 
They  had  already  carried  their  principle  with  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Arabic  case ;  was  their  object  now  to  make  a 
still  greater  splash?  The  continued  possibility  of  a  con- 
flict with  Germany — which  was  quite  within  practical 
politics  if  nothing  intervened — made  a  very  favorable 
background  to  make  clear  to  American  public  opinion,  in 
conjunction  with  a  campaign  on  the  same  lines  by  Wilson 
himself,  the  following  point:  "We  must  get  ourselves 
out  of  this  situation  pregnant  with  war  by  vindicating 
our  right  with  both  sides." 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  the  negotiations  on  the  Lusi- 
tania question  had  been  allowed  to  hang  fire  for  about  six 
weeks  I  believe  that  in  this  case  we  have  again  under- 
estimated the  significance  of  hostile  public  opinion  in 
America.  The  best  way  of  making  clear  the  situation  in 
the  United  States  will  probably  be  for  me  to  reproduce 
here  the  telegrams  and  reports  in  which  I  informed  Berlin 
of  the  reopening  of  the  Lusitania  negotiations. 

212 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CBISIS     213 

••% 

1.  EEPOBT  IN  CIPHEB 

Washington,  23rd  November,  1915. 

Secretary  of  State  Lansing  after  long  hesitation  took 
up  the  Lusitania  question  again  with  me.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  October  I  had  handed  to  him  a  draft  of  a  letter 
which,  contained  what  I  thought  myself  able  to  write  to 
him  within  the  scope  of  my  instructions.  This  draft  was 
merely  intended  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  more  detailed 
negotiations  and  was  only  to  be  regarded  as  official  in 
case  the  American  Government  should  regard  the  whole 
incident  as  satisfactorily  settled.  There  was  nothing  to 
be  gained  by  stirring  up  public  opinion  again  here  by 
publishing  documents  which  were  regarded  from  the  be- 
ginning as  unsatisfactory. 

As  I  have  several  times  had  the  honor  to  report,  there 
is,  in  my  opinion,  no  hope  of  settling  the  Lusitania  ques- 
tion, as  the  American  Government  does  not  think  that  it 
can  agree  to  refer  it  to  a  court  of  arbitration  now.  They 
are,  however,  counting  here  on  a  decision  at  a  later  date 
by  such  a  court,  which  would  be  sure  to  award  the  Ameri- 
cans an  indemnity,  because  the  Hague  court  of  arbitration 
from  its  very  nature  is  obliged  to  stand  for  the  protection 
of  neutral  non-combatants.  Consequently,  Mr.  Lansing 
cannot  understand  why  we  do  not  pay  the  indemnity  of 
our  own  accord  and  so  settle  the  whole  matter,  especially 
as,  in  view  of  our  pledge  for  the  future,  it  is  of  no  practi- 
cal importance  to  us.  Mr.  Lansing  is  primarilyVjoncerned 
with  the  indemnity,  whereas  President  Wilson  now,  as 
formerly,  lays  the  chief  weight  on  the  pledge  for  the 
future  and  the  humanitarian  aspect  of  the  question.  Mr. 
Wilson  always  keeps  his  eye  fixed  on  the  two  closely  con- 
nected goals:  the  development  of  international  law  with 
regard  to  the  freedom  of  the  seas  and  the  restoration  of 
peace. 


214       MY  THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

Mr.  Lansing  now  reopens  the  Lusitania  qnestion  for 
the  following  reasons,  part  of  which  he  has  himself  openly 
stated,  and  the  rest  have  become  known  to  me  through 
other  channels.  In  the  first  place  the  Government  is 
afraid  of  attacks  in  the  impending  Congress.  It  was, 
therefore,  eminently  desirable  that  it  should  be  able  to 
inform  Congress  that  something  had  been  done  in  the 
Lusitania  affair.  Even  if  nothing  comes  of  it  they  could 
answer  that  they  are  waiting  for  a  reply  from  Germany. 
President  Wilson  himself  does  not  believe  in  the  possi- 
bility of  the  question  being  solved,  and  hopes  to  keep  the 
matter  in  the  air  until  the  conclusion  of  peace,  provided 
that  public  opinion  does  not  become  restive  or  new 
eventualities  occur.  The  Ancona  affair  has  had  an  un- 
favorable effect  in  this  respect.  Even  though  it  has  not 
aroused  any  great  excitement,  it  has  caused  the  whole 
question  to  be  reopened,  and  everyone  on  this  side  lays 
at  our  door  the  responsibility  for  the  Austrian  act;  for 
they  base  their  reasoning  on  the  assumption  that  the  war 
is  directed  entirely  from  Berlin.  Whenever  mention  is 
made  of  the  Ancona  incident  it  recalls  the  fact  that  the 
Lusitania  question  still  remains  unsettled. 

It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  we  are  faced  here  with  an 
anti-German  ring  of  great  influence.  I  have  repeatedly 
pointed  this  out  in  my  reports.  This  ring  is  trying  to 
exploit  the  Ancona  and  Lusitania  questions  with  a  view 
to  driving  into  the  background  the  American  Note  to 
England  and  the  British  infringements  of  international 
law.  The  Government  is  treating  this  anti-German  ring 
with  the  same  weakness  as  are  the  majority  of  American 
private  citizens.  They  are  submitting  patiently  to  terror- 
ization  as  well  as  continual  baiting  and  sneering.  The 
recluse  at  the  White  House  has,  indeed,  great  plans,  but 
his  freedom  of  decision  is  seriously  compromised  by  his 
anxiety  to  be  re-elected.  He  refuses  to  allow  himself  to 


THE   SECOND   "LTJSITANIA"  CRISIS     215 

be  drawn  into  too  serious  extravagances ;  and  so  he  cer- 
tainly deserves  the  credit  for  having  prevented  war  with 
Germany,  but  he  allows  himself,  nevertheless,  to  be  in- 
fluenced by  the  anti-German  ring  and  hampered  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  plans. 

2.  TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  2nd  December,  1915. 
"The  Government  here  have  lost  their  nerve  as  a  result 
of  the  impending  Congress,  the  Hapag  case,  the  Ancona 
incident,  and  the  explosions  and  fires  in  munition  and 
powder  works,  and  like  all  private  individuals  here  are 
allowing  themselves  to  be  terrorized  by  the  anti-German 
ring.  Hence  the  anxiety  for  the  recall  of  Papen  and 
Boy-Ed.  The  Government  fear  that  Congress  will  take 
the  above  questions,  as  well  as  the  Lusitania  affair,  into 
their  own  hands,  and  deal  with  them  in  more  radical 
fashion  than  the  Government.  This  is  the  reason  for  the 
present  demand  for  the  recall — which  is  intended  to 
serve  as  a  safety-valve — lest  Congress  should  break  off 
diplomatic  relations  with  us.  "Whether  there  is  any  real 
danger  of  this  happening  it  is  difficult  to  say.  Lansing 
thinks  there  is.  In  any  case  everything  is  possible  in  the 
present  state  of  public  feeling.  They  have  not  the  cour- 
age to  swim  against  the  stream.  Perhaps  the  recall  of 
the  attaches  will  still  the  storm  for  a  time,  as  was  the  case 
with  Dernburg  and  Dumba ;  meanwhile  everything  turns 
on  the  attitude  of  Congress,  who,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  will 
not  be  anxious  to  declare  war  on  us.  Colonel  House,  who 
is  a  good  reader  of  the  barometer  here,  sees  no  danger. 
I,  personally,  also  do  not  believe  that  Congress  will  de- 
cide to  resort  to  extremes  on  one  side, — i.e.,  without 
attacking  England — for  the  breaking-off  of  diplomatic 
relations  would  certainly  be  quickly  followed  by  war. 


216       MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

"In  any  case  it  is  my  sacred  duty  to  inform  your  Ex- 
cellency that  Congress  may  produce  unpleasant  surprises, 
and  that  we  must,  therefore,  be  prepared  to  do  something 
with  regard  to  the  Lusitania  question.  How  far  we  can 
approach  the  Lansing  draft  it  is  difficult  to  judge  from 
here.  It  depends  in  the  first  place  on  the  state  of  public 
opinion  in  Germany,  for  the  matter  has  no  further  prac- 
tical importance  since  we  have  pledged  ourselves  to  spare 
passenger-ships. 

"Hitherto  my  personal  relations  with  the  American 
Government  have  been  so  good  that  it  was  always  possible 
to  prevent  the  worst  happening.  Lansing  volunteered 
yesterday  to  send  this  telegram.  But  if  the  matter  once 
gets  into  the  hands  of  Congress  it  will  be  much  more 
difficult  to  exert  influence,  especially  as  nothing  can  be 
kept  secret  here.  It  is  not  yet  possible  to  say  when  Con- 
gress will  ask  for  the  Lusitania  documents,  but  it  will 
probably  be  in  a  few  weeks'  time,  provided  that  no  diplo- 
matic understanding  can  be  reached  meanwhile." 

3.  REPORT  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  7th  December,  1915. 
"The  action  that  Congress  will  take  with  regard  to  the 
Lusitania  question  is  of  primary  importance  for  us.  It 
is  my  opinion  that  President  Wilson,  when  he  asked  for 
the  recall  of  our  two  attaches,  had  the  thought  in  the  back 
of  his  mind  that  Congress  would  let  the  Lusitania  ques- 
tion rest  for  a  time,  because  relations  with  Germany  are 
already  sufficiently  strained  and  only  the  rabid  pro- 
English  want  war.  One  cannot,  however,  count  on  any- 
thing now,  because  the  anti-German  ring  are  seeking  to 
terrorize  all  who  do  not  agree  with  them.  The  senators 
and  members  of  Congress  from  the  west  are  certainly 
more  difficult  to  jnfluence?  as  their  constituents  have  only 


THE   SECOND  "LUSITANIA"   CEISIS     217 

a  slight  economic  interest  in  the  cause  of  our  enemies. 
It  is  also  probable  that  the  senators  from  the  south  will 
all  stand  by  us,  because  they  are  very  much  embittered 
against  England  on  account  of  the  cotton  question. 
Nevertheless,  we  must,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out  by 
telegram,  be  fully  prepared  for  further  negotiations  on 
the  subject  of  the  Lusitania.  If  we  refuse  to  give  way 
at  all,  the  breaking  of  diplomatic  relations,  followed  by 
war,  is  inevitable.  In  my  opinion  it  is  out  of  the  question 
to  find  a  formula  that  will  satisfy  public  opinion  on  both 
sides.  It  may,  however,  be  possible  to  find  a  formula 
that  will  skim  over  the  points  of  contention,  as  was  done 
in  the  Arabic  case.  In  spite  of  all  the  outcry  over  here 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  American  Government  and  the 
greater  part  of  public  opinion  would  be  only  too  delighted 
if  we  could  find  a  graceful  way  of  settling  the  Lusitania 
question  without  a  conflict.  What  is  required  in  the  first 
place  is : 

"1.  A  declaration  on  our  side  that  the  attack  on  the 
Lusitania  should  be  regarded  as  an  act  of  reprisal  and, 
therefore,  not  within  the  scope  of  existing  international 
law. 

"2.  The  payment  of  an  indemnity,  which  in  my  opin- 
ion could  be  made  without  committing  ourselves  on  the 
question  of  responsibility. 

"President  "Wilson  had  hoped  that  the  whole  question 
could  be  shelved  until  after  the  end  of  the  war.  Now  the 
war  still  drags  on,  and  Mr.  Wilson  is  afraid  of  radical 
intervention  on  the  part  of  Congress.  Over  here  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  prophesy.  The  unexpected  is  the  only 
thing  that  consistently  recurs.  No  one  can  say  what  Con- 
gress will  do.  Meanwhile,  it  is  my  duty  to  describe  the 
situation  as  I  see  it  to-day.  Whether  the  Lusitania  ques- 


218        MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

tion  is  of  sufficient  practical  importance  to  allow  it  to 
bring  upon  us  the  breaking-off  of  diplomatic  relations 
and  war  with  the  United  States  I  must  leave  it  to  the 
exalted  judgment  of  your  Excellency  to  decide." 


The  American  Government  had  established  a  basis  for 
the  negotiations  with  regard  to  the  Lusitania  and  "the 
Freedom  of  the  Seas"  which  was  in  our  favor  when,  on 
the  21st  October,  they  sent  a  very  circumstantial  Note  to 
London  in  which  they  demonstrated  that  the  English 
blockade  was  a  breach  of  international  law  and  definitely 
stated  that  this  blockade  was  neither  effective,  legal  nor 
defensible.  Further,  that  the  United  States  could  not, 
therefore,  submit  to  an  infringement  of  her  rights  as  a 
neutral  through  measures  which  were  admittedly  re- 
prisals, and,  consequently,  contrary  to  international  law. 
That  she  could  not  with  equanimity  allow  her  rights  to 
be  subordinated  to  the  plea  that  the  peculiar  geographical 
position  of  the  enemies  of  Great  Britain  justified  meas- 
ures contrary  to  international  law. 

The  conclusion  of  the  Note  read  as  follows : 

"It  is  of  the  highest  importance  to  neutrals  not  only  of 
the  present  day,  but  of  the  future,  that  the  principles  of 
international  right  be  maintained  unimpaired. 

"This  task  of  championing  the  integrity  of  neutral 
rights,  which  have  received  the  sanction  of  the  civilized 
world  against  the  lawless  conduct  of  belligerents  arising 
out  of  the  bitterness  of  the  great  conflict  which  is  now 
wasting  the  countries  of  Europe,  the  United  States  un- 
hesitatingly assumes,  and  to  the  accomplishment  of  that 
task  it  will  devote  its  energies,  exercising  always  that 
impartiality  which  from  the  outbreak  of  the  war  it  has 


THE   SECOND  "LUSITANIA"   CEISIS     219 

sought  to  exercise  in  its  relations  with  the  warring 
nations." 

The  above  programme  was  in  accordance  with  the  pro- 
posal of  the  .American  Note  of  21st  July,  which  had 
touched  on  the  subject  of  co-operation  in  realizing  the 
"Freedom  of  the  Seas."  It  was,  however,  clear  to  me, 
apart  from  anything  else,  that  the  United  States  would 
not  expend  energy  in  championing  the  rights  of  neutrals 
so  long  as  a  conflict  with  Germany  threatened.  The 
settlement  of  the  Arabic  question  gave  grounds  for  hope 
that  the  views  of  the  two  Governments  on  the  question 
of  submarine  warfare  would  coincide.  This  appeared  to 
me  to  be  the  most  important  point ;  the  American  Govern- 
ment, however,  insisted  on  the  settlement  of  the  Lusitania 
incident,  which  I  foresaw  was  going  to  prove  a  very  diffi- 
cult problem.  Even  in  the  Arabic  affair  it  was  only  by 
my  own  independent  action  that  it  was  possible  to  avoid 
a  break.  The  Lusitania  question,  however,  was  much 
more  unfavorable  to  us  because  at  that  time  the  old  in- 
structions to  submarine  captains  were  still  in  force.  I 
should,  therefore,  have  been  glad  to  avoid  negotiations  on 
the  Lusitania  question,  but  Mr.  Lansing  insisted  on  a 
settlement  before  he  spoke  on  the  future  "  Freedom  of 
the  Seas."  The  reason  for  this  attitude  of  the  Secretary 
of  State,  as  appears  in  my  reports  reproduced  above,  lay 
in  the  state  of  public  opinion.  It  was  unfortunately  im- 
possible for  the  American  Government  to  carry  through 
the  policy  they  had  adopted  in  respect  to  England  so  long 
as  the  -Lusitania  question  was  brought  forward  daily  in 
the  American  Press. 

The  negotiations  should  have  been  carried  through 
orally  and  confidentially  between  Mr.  Lansing  and  my- 
self. Unfortunately,  however,  it  was  impossible  to  keep 
anything  confidential  in  Washington,  particularly  as,  very 


220       MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

much  against  my  wishes,  the  conversations  were  pro- 
tracted for  weeks.  The  state  department  was  continually 
besieged  by  journalists,  who  reported  in  their  papers  a 
medley  of  truth  and  fiction  about  each  of  my  visits.  In 
this  way  they  provoked  denials,  and  so  ended  by  getting 
a  good  idea  of  how  the  situation  stood.  In  addition  to 
this,  authoritative  persons  in  Berlin  gave  interviews  to 
American  journalists,  who  reported  to  the  United  States 
papers  everything  that  they  did  not  already  know.  Con- 
sequently, the  negotiations  did  not  progress  in  the  way 
Mr.  Lansing  and  I  had  expected.  We  wanted  to  arrive 
quickly  at  a  formula  and  make  it  known  at  once.  Pub- 
lic opinion  in  both  countries  would  then  have  been  set  at 
rest,  and  the  past  would  have  been  buried  so  long  as  no 
fresh  differences  of  opinion  and  conflict  arose  out  of  the 
submarine  war.  The  formula,  however,  was  not  so  easy 
to  arrive  at.  The  wording  of  the  Memorandum  which  I 
was  to  present  to  the  American  Government  had  to  be 
repeatedly  cabled  to  Berlin,  where  each  time  some  altera- 
tion was  required  in  the  text  that  Mr.  Lansing  wanted. 

The  American  Government  held  to  the  point  of  view 
which  they  had  formulated  in  the  Note  of  the  21st  July, 
as  follows: 

".  .  .  for  a  belligerent  act  of  retaliation  is  per  se  an 
act  beyond  the  law  and  the  defense  of  an  act  as  retalia- 
tory is  an  admission  that  it  is  illegal." 

The  standpoint  of  the  American  Note  of  the  21st  July, 
1915,  shows  clearly  the  mistake  of  treating  the  submarine 
war  as  reprisals.  It  shows  how  every  surrender  of  a 
position  compromises  the  next. 

The  German  Government,  on  the  other  hand,  refused 
under  any  circumstances  to  admit  the  illegality  of  the 
submarine  warfare  within  the  war-zone,  because  they 
regarded  the  right  to  make  reprisals  as  a  recognized  part 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     221 

of  the  existing  international  law.  Further,  the  American 
demand  was  regarded  in  Germany  as  a  deliberate  humil- 
iation, as  well  as  an  attempt  to  coerce  us  unconditionally 
to  renounce  unrestricted  submarine  warfare  once  and  for 
all.  To  have  admitted  that  the  submarine  war  was  a 
breach  of  international  law  would  have  involved  us  in  the 
same  unpleasant  consequences  to  which  now,  after  our 
defeat,  we  are  compelled  to  submit.  If  we  admitted  the 
illegality  of  the  submarine  campaign  we  should  have  been 
obliged,  on  the  conclusion  of  peace,  to  meet  all  the  de- 
mands for  damages  arising  out  of  it. 

For  the  third  time,  then,  the  word  "illegal"  brought  us 
face  to  face  with  a  crisis  which  was  within  an  ace  of 
causing  a  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations.  The  last  days 
of  the  negotiations  turned  out  very  unfortunately  for  us. 
Mr.  Lansing  and  I  had  agreed  upon  a  formula  in  which 
the  word  "illegal"  did  not  occur,  because  my  instructions 
categorically  prohibited  its  use.  In  Berlin  it  was  not 
yet  known  that  we  had  arrived  at  the  desired  agreement, 
and  it  was  there  thought  necessary  to  call  public  atten- 
tion to  the  danger  of  the  situation,  and  explain  the  seri- 
ousness of  the  position  in  the  hope  that  by  this  means  the 
American  Government  might  be  moved  to  adopt  a  more 
conciliatory  attitude. 

On  5th  February,  Under-Secretary  of  State  Zimmer- 
mann  gave  an  interview  to  the  Associated  Press  in  which 
he  said  he  did  not  wish  to  conceal  the  seriousness  of  the 
position.  That  Germany  could  under  no  circumstances 
admit  the  illegality  of  the  submarine  campaign  within  the 
war-zone.  The  whole  crisis  arose  from  the  new  demand 
of  America  that  Germany  should  admit  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania  to  be  an  act  infringing  the  law  of  nations.  Ger- 
many could  not  renounce  the  submarine  as  a  weapon.  If 
the  United  States  insisted  on  bringing  about  a  break 
Germany  could  do  nothing  further  to  avoid  it.  The 


222        MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

Imperial  Chancellor  confirmed  these  statements  in  a 
conversation  with  the  Berlin  correspondent  of  The 
World. 

These  interviews  compromised  once  more  the  settle- 
ment of  the  negotiations,  because  the  American  Govern- 
ment were  doubtful  as  to  whether  they  could  allow  the 
word  " illegal' '  to  be  omitted,  after  the  sharp  difference 
of  opinion  between  the  two  Governments  had  become 
public  property.  The  agreement  which  had  been  reached 
voluntarily  now  looked  like  a  weak  surrender  before  a 
German  threat.  In  the  end,  however,  a  compromise  was 
arrived  at.  I  handed  to  Mr.  Lansing  in  writing  a  declara- 
tion amounting  to  an  admission  that  reprisals  were  ad- 
missible, but  that  they  should  not  be  allowed  to  injure 
neutrals,  and  that  therefore  the  German  Government 
regretted  the  incident  and  were  prepared  to  offer  satis- 
faction and  compensation.  The  American  Government 
were  willing  to  confirm  the  receipt  of  this  Memorandum 
and  declare  themselves  satisfied.  Fate,  however,  had 
decreed  that  I  should  play  the  role  of  Sisyphus  at  Wash- 
ington. Scarcely  were  the  negotiations  terminated  when 
the  German  Government,  on  the  8th  February,  declared 
the  so-called  "ruthless  submarine  war,"  i.e.  announced 
to  the  sea  powers  their  intention  of  sinking  armed 
merchantmen  without  warning  and  without  regard  to 
crew  or  passengers.  In  view  of  this  the  American  Gov- 
ernment refused  to  complete  the  exchange  of  letters  on 
the  subject  of  the  Lusitania.  Instead  of  this  there  began 
a  new  controversy  on  the  question  of  "  armed  merchant- 
men." My  hope  of  settling  the  Lusitania  question  and 
then  passing  on  to  the  discussion  of  "Freedom  of  the 
Seas"  was  shattered.  This  hit  me  all  the  harder  as  I  was 
convinced  that  the  conversations  on  the  latter  question 
would  have  developed  into  peace  negotiations. 

The  opinion  has  been  expressed  in  Germany  that  the 


breaking-off  of  diplomatic  relations  at  this  stage  was  re- 
garded, even  in  America,  as  precipitate,  since  no  really 
acute  provocation  had  been  given.  That  it  was  a  shame- 
lessly engineered  break  after  we  had  in  principle  yielded 
on  every  point.  That  the  Americans  had  apparently  been 
bluffing  and  continually  increasing  their  demands  with 
a  view  of  enhancing  their  own  prestige  by  scoring  further 
diplomatic  successes  against  us  which,  in  view  of  the 
previous  course  of  events,  they  could  regard  as  certain. 
In  this  case  I  do  not  myself  believe  that  the  American 
Government  were  really  thinking  seriously  of  breaking 
off  diplomatic  relations.  They  only  wanted  to  pacify 
public  opinion  by  a  settlement  of  the  Lusitania  question, 
which  was  essential  before  passing  on  to  negotiations 
with  regard  to  the  " Freedom  of  the  Seas"  or  to  steps  for 
peace.  Threats  of  war  arose  only  because  the  negotia- 
tions were  protracted  for  weeks,  and  the  word  "  illegal " 
was  discussed  in  the  Press  in  every  possible  tone.  It 
was  a  misfortune  that  these  negotiations  were  not  carried 
on — like  the  subsequent  conversations  with  regard  to 
peace — in  secret.  I  had  actually  persuaded  the  American 
Government  to  give  way  on  the  word  "illegal,"  which 
had  become  much  more  difficult  for  them  owing  to  the 
publicity  that  was  given  to  the  negotiations.  Had  it  not 
been  for  the  ruthless  submarine  campaign  the  Lusitania 
question  would  have  been  finally  buried  and  the  negotia- 
tions could  have  been  continued  in  a  friendly  spirit. 
Moreover,  the  so-called  ruthless  submarine  campaign 
was,  according  to  the  opinion  of  Admiral  von  Tirpitz, 
who  was  at  that  time  still  in  office,  although  he  was  not 
consulted  until  the  decision  was  taken,  a  military  farce. 
He  declared  the  order  to  be  technically  nonsense,  and 
the  pompous  way  in  which  it  was  issued  as  unnecessa- 
rily provocative  and  a  challenge.  The  whole  thing  was 
neither  "fish  nor  flesh." 


224       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

The  controversy  over  the  "armed  merchantmen"  had 
a  prologue  which  could  only  be  described  as  a  comedy  of 
errors,  were  the  matter  not  so  serious.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  allows  the 
President  the  right  of  independent  political  action.  He 
alone  is  responsible,  and  his  Secretary  of  State  and  the 
other  Ministers  are  only  his  assistants,  without  personal 
responsibility.  Mr.  Wilson  has  made  much  greater  use 
of  his  rights  in  this  respect  than  even  Mr.  Roosevelt. 
From  the  very  beginning  his  administration  was  a  one- 
man  Government. 

In  general  terms  the  development  of  democracy  in 
America  amounts  to  this,  that  the  electors  vest  unlimited 
rights  in  one  man  for  a  short  time,  and  after  that  they 
re-elect  or  replace  him  according  to  whether  he  has  won 
or  lost  their  confidence. 

Thus  arises  a  sort  of  temporary  autocracy  which  com- 
bines the  advantages  of  a  monarchy  and  a  democracy. 
Whether  this  historically  developed  system  really  coin- 
cides with  our  idea  of  formal  democracy  is  another 
question. 

However  this  may  be,  the  political  life  of  a  nation  is 
not  to  be  ruled  by  catch-words.  History  is  the  only 
builder  of  state  organisms.  No  one  can  foretell  in  what 
direction  our  young  democracy  will  develop.  In  view 
of  the  indifference  of  the  German  people  to  politics  it 
may  be  assumed,  however,  that  it  will  develop  on  similar 
lines  to  that  of  America  when  we  have  once  accepted  the 
principle  of  the  election  of  the  President  by  the  people. 
Such  a  President  will  always  possess  great  power  and 
authority  in  his  relation  to  other  bodies,  while  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  German  people  will  be  willing  to  leave 
political  affairs  in  the  hands  of  the  man  they  have  elected, 
and  will  even  give  him  charge  of  their  economic  affairs. 
The  German  President  of  the  future  will  certainly  find 


himself  involved  in  the  same  differences  with  the  Min- 
isters responsible  to  the  majority  in  the  Reichstag  as  the 
American  President  has  had  so  frequently  with  the 
Senate.  In  such  cases  the  American  people  nearly 
always  support  the  President,  directly  chosen  by  them, 
and  so  bring  corresponding  pressure  to  bear  on  the 
Senate. 

The  brief  constitutional  diversion  from  the  question 
of  "armed  merchantmen"  was  to  give  an  opportunity  for 
announcing  the  surprising  catastrophes  which  had  oc-* 
curred  in  the  course  of  the  development  of  this  question. 
About  the  end  of  the  year  1915  Mr.  Wilson  had  married 
for  the  second  time  and  was  absent  for  a  time  from  Wash- 
ington. Consequently  the  President  seems  not  to  have 
exerted  the  same  close  control  as  usual  over  the  political 
actions  of  his  Ministers.  In  any  case  he  had  not  read,  or 
only  hastily  glanced  through,  a  Memorandum  on  the  sub- 
marine campaign  which  Mr.  Lansing  had  handed  on  the 
18th  January,  1916,  to  the  representatives  of  the  Entente, 
and  had  not  therefore  realized  its  far-reaching  impor- 
tance. This  Memorandum  only  came  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  Central  Powers  at  a  later  date,  through  the  medium 
of  the  Press,  which  had  got  to  know  of  it  from  one  of  the 
Entente  representatives  or  through  some  indiscretion. 

The  Memorandum  went  even  further  than  the  Note  of 
the  21st  July,  1915,  and  recognized  that  the  use  of  sub- 
marines could  not  be  prohibited  to  the  combatants  after 
they  had  proved  their  value  in  attacking  enemy  com- 
merce. It  laid  down,  however,  that  the  submarine  cam- 
paign must,  without  interfering  with  its  effectiveness,  be 
brought  into  harmony  with  the  general  provisions  of  in- 
ternational law  and  with  the  principles  of  humanity.  It 
was,  therefore,  necessary  on  the  one  side  that  the  sub- 
marines should  be  instructed  to  conduct  their  campaign 
within  the  limits  laid  down  for  cruiser-warfare  against 


226        MY   THREE  .YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

merchant  shipping,  i.e.,  they  must  not  sink  without  first 
stopping  and  examining  the  ship  and  giving  the  passen- 
gers and  crew  a  chance  to  save  themselves.  On  the 
other  side,  the  merchant  ships  were  not  to  carry  arms, 
since,  owing  to  the  nature  of  the  submarines,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  them  to  conduct  their  operations  on  the 
lines  of  cruiser-warfare  if  the  merchantmen  were  even 
lightly  armed,  as  had  hitherto  been  permitted  by  the 
principles  of  international  law  for  purposes  of  defense. 
Under  the  prevailing  circumstances  any  arming  of  a 
merchant  ship  would  have  an  offensive  character. 
The  Memorandum  concluded  as  follows: 

"I  should  add  that  my  Government  is  impressed  with 
the  reasonableness  of  the  argument  that  a  merchant 
vessel  carrying  an  armament  of  any  sort,  in  view  of  the 
character  of  submarine  warfare  and  the  defensive  weak- 
ness of  undersea  craft,  should  be  held  to  be  an  auxiliary 
cruiser  and  so  treated  by  a  neutral  as  well  as  by  a 
belligerent  Government,  and  is  seriously  considering  in- 
structing its  officials  accordingly." 

Although  this  Memorandum  bears  no  historical  weight 
I  deal  with  it  in  detail  here  because  it  played  a  leading 
part  before  the  Committee  of  the  National  Assembly  as 
a  proof  that  no  confidence  could  be  placed  in  Mr.  Wilson 
as  a  peace  mediator. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Memorandum  was  intended  to 
carry  on  the  policy  of  the  American  Notes  of  the  21st 
July  and  21st  October,  1915,  which  had  given  rise  to  the 
American  struggle  for  the  "Freedom  of  the  Seas."  It 
was  not,  however,  in  keeping  with  Mr.  Wilson's  usual 
methods  to  make  such  a  sharp  thrust  at  the  Entente  as 
the  concluding  paragraph  of  the  Memorandum  repre- 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     227 

sented,  so  long  as  the  negotiations  with  me  on  the  subject 
of  the  Lusitania  incident  were  not  yet  concluded  and  so 
long  as  it  was  not  absolutely  sure  of  the  support  of  public 
opinion.  Just  as  the  Note  of  the  21st  October,  1915,  was 
not  sent  to  London  until  the  President  thought  he  had 
cleared  the  way  with  respect  to  us  by  the  settlement  of 
the  Arabic  question,  so  in  January,  1916,  he  wanted  to 
keep  his  hands  free  until  the  chance  of  a  conflict  with  us 
was  past.  The  popular  saying  in  America  is  that  Wilson 
has  a  single-line  brain  and  only  deals  with  one  matter 
at  a  time.  Moreover,  out  of  regard  for  the  state  of 
public  feeling  in  the  country  the  President  wanted  to  take 
each  political  step  without  being  openly  coerced  by  us. 
It  is  not  my  intention  to  defend  Mr.  Wilson's  conception 
of  neutrality  to-day,  after  I  have  opposed  it  for  years, 
but  I  will  only  attempt,  without  any  personal  ill-will,  to 
contribute  to  Klio's  work  of  discovering  the  real  truth. 
To  me  personally  the  matter  of  paramount  interest  to- 
day, as  at  that  time,  is  not  what  Mr.  Wilson  did  or  did 
not  do,  but  the  question  what  we  ought  to  have  done  in 
the  interest  of  Germany. 

I  shall  often  have  to  return  to  the  developments  which, 
after  the  31st  January,  1917,  made  the  President  our 
open  enemy.  If  we  wish  to  be  lovers  of  truth  we  must 
distinguish  sharply  between  the  two  periods  before  and 
after  the  31st  January,  1917.  It  is  certain  that  Mr. 
Wilson  was  never  even  near  to  being  pro-German.  By 
descent,  education  and  training  he  was  unconsciously 
much  too  much  under  the  English  influence  already  men- 
tioned. But  until  the  31st  January,  1917,  the  President 
had  striven  to  be  neutral.  All  his  speeches  testify  to  this. 
No  un-neutral  remark  of  Mr.  Wilson,  even  in  private, 
has  ever  reached  my  ears.  He  always  resisted  the  pres- 
sure of  the  Entente  party,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he 
was  almost  entirely  surrounded  by  anti-Germans.  The 


228       MY   THREE  YEAKS   IN  AMERICA 

only  one  I  could  mention  whose  advice  to  the  President 
was  always  definitely  neutral  was  Mr.  House.  For  the 
rest,  in  the  east  of  the  United  States  we  found  ourselves 
morally  in  an  enemy  country.  Every  neutral  step  taken 
by  Mr.  Wilson  was  immediately  hailed  as  "pro-German." 
For  instance,  I  am  convinced  that  the  President  could 
never  have  carried  out  the  threat  contained  in  the  final 
clause  of  the  Memorandum  of  the  18th  January.  Gradu- 
ally all  the  Entente  merchantmen  were  armed.  If  these 
were  to  be  treated  in  American  ports  as  auxiliary  cruisers 
the  whole  of  American  commerce  would  of  necessity  have 
come  to  a  standstill,  for  it  was  already  suffering  seri- 
ously from  lack  of  freight  space.  The  Entente  knew 
exactly  how  much  value  all  Americans  placed  on  their 
commerce,  and  could  therefore  reject  the  proposal  of  the 
United  States  with  equanimity. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  well  worthy  of  notice  that  in  the 
Memorandum  of  the  18th  January,  1916,  the  legally 
trained  and  legally  minded  Secretary  of  State  Lansing, 
as  well  as  Mr.  Bryan,  brought  forward  or  attempted  to 
bring  forward  a  different  kind  of  neutrality  from  that 
of  the  President.  The  only  question  is  whether  Mr. 
Wilson  could  at  that  time  have  carried  through  the  Lans- 
ing policy.  I  do  not  think  so.  This  does  not  in  itself 
relieve  the  President  of  the  responsibility  of  not  wishing 
to  make  such  a  sharp  thrust  against  the  Entente  as  was 
represented  by  the  Memorandum  so  long  as  the  negotia- 
tions on  the  Lusitania  affair  still  remained  unsettled.  Yet 
throughout  the  whole  war  Holland  has  never  followed  the 
regulations  of  the  Memorandum.  This  fact  remains.  Mr. 
Wilson  did  not  enforce  the  Memorandum  because  he 
could  not  do  so  without  prejudicing  the  interests  of 
American  commerce.  In  this  case  Mr.  Lansing  was  the 
neutral  advocate  and  the  President  the  American  poli- 
tician, whose  decisions  on  foreign  questions,  as  usually 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     229 

happens  in  the  United  States,  were  actuated  by  domestic 
politics. 

After  the  issue  of  Mr.  Wilson's  protest  against  the 
English  blockade,  and  in  view  of  the  turn  that  the  Lansing 
action  against  armed  merchantmen  had  taken,  it  can  be 
understood  that  the  German  Imperial  Government  hence- 
forward was  suspicious  of  the  good-will  and  power  of 
the  President  as  a  peace  mediator.  Meanwhile  there 
came  a  change  in  the  domestic  situation,  and  this,  as  I 
have  already  mentioned,  is  always  the  decisive  factor 
in  the  United  States  in  all  questions  of  foreign  policy. 

It  would  have  been  a  good  move  on  our  part  to  wait 
for  the  result  of  the  Lusitania  negotiations,  and  then  to 
give  Mr.  Wilson  time  to  take  in  hand  his  policy  with  re- 
gard to  the  "Freedom  of  the  Seas'*  on  his  own  initiative. 
Berlin,  however,  was  always  in  a  hurry  to  bring  in  the 
new  measures  of  submarine  warfare,  although  the  dis- 
advantages that  this  would  cause  us  always  outweighed 
the  advantages.  However,  the  Americans  themselves 
will  perhaps  some  day  have  occasion  to  regret  that  they 
did  not  seize  the  opportunity  of  the  war  to  insure  the 
" Freedom  of  the  Seas."  If  during  the  five  years  of  war 
— from  the  mobilization  to  the  peace  offer  and  the  armis- 
tice— we  Germans  were  always  in  too  great  a  hurry  with 
our  decisions,  the  American  Government,  on  the  other 
hand,  lost  through  hesitation  many  an  opportunity  of 
keeping  out  of  the  war.  There  could  be  no  doubt  that 
the  United  States  could,  as  a  neutral  power,  have  brought 
about  a  better  peace  than  they  have  done  as  the  decisive 
combatant  power. 

In  January,  1916,  there  occurred  an  unfortunate  mis- 
understanding, which  must  have  strengthened  the  Ger- 
man Government  in  their  intention  of  declaring  the  un- 
restricted submarine  war.  The  Austrian  representative 
had  an  interview  with  Mr.  Lansing  with  reference  to  the 


230       MY  THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

Ancona  incident,  in  which  he  understood  the  Secretary 
of  State  to  say  that  it  would  be  agreeable  to  the  Ameri- 
can Government  if  the  Central  Powers  in  future  regarded 
armed  enemy  merchantmen  as  auxiliary  cruisers.  Baron 
Zwiedineck  sent  a  wireless  report  of  this  interview  to  his 
Government  via  Nauen.  As  has  already  been  mentioned, 
all  our  wireless  messages  were  read  by  the  American 
Government  departments,  and  it  had  often  occurred  that 
objection  had  been  raised.  As  this  message  of  Baron 
Zwiedineck  was  sent  without  protest  I  assumed  that  Mr. 
Lansing  had  agreed  to  its  contents.  Later  a  confidential 
discussion  took  place  between  the  Secretary  of  State, 
Baron  Zwiedineck  and  myself,  on  the  subject  of  this  inci- 
dent. Mr.  Lansing  said  that  he  had  not  read  the  wireless 
message,  as  such  messages  were  only  examined  by  the 
censor,  with  a  view  to  seeing  that  they  did  not  compro- 
mise the  neutrality  of  the  United  States.  Further,  he 
maintained,  that  Baron  Zwiedineck  must  have  misunder- 
stood him,  as  he  had  not  made  the  statement  imputed  to 
him  in  the  message.  We  did  not  treat  the  conversation  as 
official,  in  order  not  to  put  any  greater  difficulties  in  Mr. 
Lansing 's  way  than  he  already  had  to  face  as  a  result  of 
his  Memorandum  of  18th  January. 

The  German  Memorandum  of  8th  February,  1915,  pro- 
claiming the  unrestricted  submarine  campaign,  was 
handed  to  Mr.  Gerard  in  Berlin.  I  had  for  the  moment 
no  further  negotiations  to  conduct,  as  the  Lusitania  ques- 
tion was  never  again  reopened  and  the  question  of  the 
"Freedom  of  the  Seas"  had  been  quashed  by  the  un- 
restricted submarine  campaign. 

Meanwhile  Colonel  House  had  gone  for  a  second  time 
to  Europe,  this  time  as  the  official  representative  of  the 
President.  He  was  in  Berlin  just  at  the  time  when  the 
second  Lusitania  crisis  reached  its  apogee. 

I  had  announced  his  visit  to  Berlin,  and  prepared 


THE   SECOND  "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     231 

everything  so  that  he  might  have  every  opportunity  for 
conversation  with  the  authoritative  political  personages. 

When  Colonel  House  returned  to  America,  he  told  me 
that  the  time  had  not  yet  come  for  the  mediation  of  the 
United  States.  He  had,  however,  had  the  opportunity  to 
state  his  views  in  London,  Paris  and  Berlin,  and  had  met 
with  the  greatest  opposition  in  Paris,  because  France  had 
suffered  so  seriously  in  the  war  that  she  had  little  more 
to  lose  by  prolonging  it. 

In  Berlin,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  found  a  disposition 
to  agree  to  mediation  by  Mr.  Wilson  when  a  favorable 
opportunity  occurred. 

In  accordance  with  the  wish  of  the  President,  I  had 
discussed  the  peace  question  exclusively  with  Colonel 
House  since  his  second  visit  to  Europe.  This  made  it 
possible  for  the  conversations  to  be  kept  strictly  confi- 
dential. I  could  call  on  Colonel  House  at  his  private 
residence  in  New  York  at  any  time  without  attracting 
attention,  whereas  the  State  Dpartment  and  the  White 
House  were  always  besieged  by  journalists,  as  I  have 
already  mentioned.  As  a  rule,  I  took  the  night  train  to 
New  York  and  called  on  Colonel  House  in  the  morning, 
before  the  Press  were  aware  that  I  had  left  Washington. 

On  the  8th  March,  according  to  my  instructions,  I 
handed  to  the  American  Government  a  further  Memo- 
randum, which  set  out  in  concise  terms  the  German 
standpoint. 

After  recapitulating  the  various  phases  of  the  negotia- 
tions which  are  already  known  to  the  reader,  it  defined 
the  existing  situation  with  regard  to  the  war  at  sea  as 
follows : 

England  was  making  it  impossible  for  the  submarines 
to  carry  on  their  campaign  against  commerce  in  accord- 
ance with  the  provisions  of  international  law  by  arming 


232  "     MY   THBEE  YEABS   IN  AMERICA 

practically  all  merchantmen,  and  ordering  the  use  of 
their  guns  for  offence.  Photographs  of  the  English 
orders  had  been  sent  to  the  neutral  Governments,  with 
the  Memorandum  of  the  8th  February,  1916.  These 
orders  are  directly  contrary  to  the  declarations  of  the 
English  Ambassador  in  Washington  on  the  25th  August, 
1914.  The  Imperial  German  Government  had  hoped  that 
these  facts  would  prompt  the  neutral  Governments  to 
carry  out  the  disarmament  of  merchant  vessels  on  the 
lines  of  the  proposals  for  disarmament  made  by  the 
United  States  Government  on  23rd  January,  1916. 
Actually,  however,  the  arming  of  these  ships  with  guns 
provided  by  our  enemies  has  been  energetically  pursued. 

Advantage  was  taken  by  England  and  her  Allies  of  the 
American  Government's  decision  not  to  keep  her  citizens 
off  enemy  merchant  ships  to  arm  merchantmen  for  attack. 
This  makes  it  easy  for  merchantmen  to  destroy  the  sub- 
marines, and,  in  case  of  the  failure  of  their  attack,  to 
count  themselves  secure  owing  to  the  presence  on  board 
of  American  citizens. 

The  order  as  to  the  use  of  arms  was  supplemented  by 
instructions  given  to  the  masters  of  the  merchant  vessels 
to  fly  false  colors  and  to  ram  the  submarines.  The  news 
that  prize-money  was  paid  to  successful  captains  of 
merchant  ships  and  honors  conferred  upon  them  in- 
creased the  effectiveness  of  these  orders.  The  Allies  have 
associated  themselves  with  these  English  measures. 

Germany  now  finds  herself  faced  with  the  following 
facts : 

(a)  That  for  a  year  a  blockade  contrary  to  inter- 
national law  has  kept  neutral  commerce  away  from  Ger- 
man ports  and  made  export  from  Germany  impossible. 

(fc)  That  for  six  months  an  extension,  contrary  to  in- 
ternational law,  of  the  laws  of  contraband  has  hampered 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     233 

the  maritime  commerce  of  neutral  neighbors  in  respect 
of  Germany. 

(c)  That  interference  with  the  post,  contrary  to  inter- 
national law,  is  striving  to  cut  Germany  off  from  all 
communication  with  the  outside  world. 

(d)  That  systematically  increased  coercion  of  neutrals, 
on  the  principle  that  "Might  is  right, "  is  stopping  trade 
with  Germdny  across  the  land  frontiers,  with  a  view  to 
completing  the  starvation  blockade  of  the  non-combatant 
population  of  the  Central  Powers. 

(e)  That  Germans  who  are  found  at  sea  by  our  enemies 
are  robbed  of  their  liberty  regardless  of  whether  they  are 
combatants  or  non-combatants. 

(/)  That  our  enemies  have  armed  their  merchant  ships 
for  attack,  and  have  thus  made  impossible  the  use  of  sub- 
marines in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  London. 

The  English  White  Book,  of  the  5th  January,  1916, 
with  regard  to  the  restriction  of  German  commerce, 
boasts  that  through  these  measures  Germany's  export 
trade  has  been  almost  completely  stopped,  and  that  her 
imports  have  been  made  dependent  on  the  good-will  of 
England. 

The  Imperial  Government  may  hope  that,  in  view  of 
the  friendly  relations  that  have  existed  between  the  two 
countries  for  a  hundred  years,  the  standpoint  herein  laid 
down  will  meet  with  the  sympathy  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  in  spite  of  the  increased  difficulty  of 
mutual  understanding  brought  about  by  the  conduct  of 
our  enemies. 

.  The  last  words  of  this  Memorandum  were  vigorously 
commented  on  by  the  American  Press  as  a  proof  that  we 
wished  to  appeal,  not  to  the  American  Government,  but 
to  the  American  people,  as  a  result  of  the  movement 


234       MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

which  had  been  set  on  foot  in  Congress,  and  especially  in 
the  Senate,  that  American  citizens  should  be  prohibited 
from  travelling  on  the  armed  merchant  vessels  of  com- 
batant States. 

The  struggle  which  was  at  that  time  being  waged  in 
Congress  has  been  greatly  exaggerated  in  Germany.  At 
home  it  was  thought  that  the  weight  of  opinion  in  Con- 
gress in  favor  of  the  warning  of  passengers  was  very 
great.  On  the  pro-German  side  in  New  York  it  was 
thought  that  Congress  was  anxious  to  avert  danger  of  a 
conflict.  If  this  could  have  happened  through  a  yielding 
on  the  part  of  Germany,  it  would,  of  course,  have  made 
things  much  easier  for  the  Americans ;  if,  however,  Ger- 
many refused  to  give  way,  they  thought  the  United  States 
would  have  found  a  more  conciliatory  formula,  as  the 
country  was  seeking  before  all  things  to  avert  war.  They 
believed  that  the  re-election  of  1916  had  been  largely  won 
through  the  battle-cry,  "He  kept  us  out  of  the  war," 
which  showed  that  Congress,  with  its  love  of  freedom, 
reflected  the  general  opinion.  It  was,  moreover,  doubted 
in  the  same  quarter  whether  Wilson,  as  a  pacifist  candi- 
date for  the  Presidency,  could  declare  war  at  that  time, 
when  there  was  as  yet  no  definite  provocation — as,  for 
example,  the  Mexico  Dispatch.  The  theory  of  this  small 
pro-German  group  in  New  York  was  that  Congress  would 
at  that  time  have  done  anything  to  avoid  war,  and  that 
they  had  only  accepted  the  Gore  resolution  in  order  to 
humiliate  the  President  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  as  no 
head  of  a  State  had  ever  been  disavowed  before. 

In  the  same  quarter — as  also  happened  before  the 
Committee  of  the  German  National  Assembly — the  whole 
question  aroused  indignation.  It  was  said  that  when  the 
Germans  read  that  it  had  been  pompously  brought  for- 
ward as  a  point  of  honor  whether  a  few  Americans  should 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     235 

travel  by  enemy  armed  vessels,  they  bristled  with  anger. 
It  looked  to  them  as  though  the  alternatives  were 
whether  these  few  Americans  should  travel  in  the  war- 
zone  on  neutral  ships,  or  whether  a  great  civilized  nation 
like  Germany  should  go  under!  The  matter  developed 
from  the  "too  proud  to  fight "  attitude — when  Wilson 
really  believed  there  was  a  danger  of  war,  and  so  drew 
back — to  the  tone  of  February,  1916 — when  he  no  longer 
believed  in  the  possibility  of  war,  but  felt  sure  that  he 
could  subdue  us  with  hard  words.  They  thought  it 
strange,  moreover,  to  hear  "Wilson  speaking  of  the 
gradual  breakdown  of  the  delicate  structure  of  inter- 
national law.  That  had  resulted  from  England's  at- 
titude, and  in  1812  America  had  declared  war  on  the 
English  because  of  an  illegal  blockade. 

Politics  are  not  to  be  carried  on  by  indignation,  but 
only  with  a  cool  head  and  a  clear  vision  for  political 
realities.  We  could  not  alter  the  American  situation,  but 
must  strive  to  conduct  ourselves  in  such  a  way  as  to 
prejudice  the  position  of  the  United  States  as  little  as 
possible. 

I  had  from  the  beginning  little  doubt  that  Mr.  Wilson 
would  make  his  will  prevail,  because  the  domestic 
position  in  the  United  States  made  any  other  issue  im- 
possible. The  presidential  election  was  imminent,  and 
the  Democratic  party  had  no  likely  candidate  apart  from 
Mr.  Wilson.  If  a  split  occurred  within  the  party  the 
Eepublicans  would  be  bound  to  win.  Senators  Stone  and 
Gore  were  the  leaders  of  the  Democratic  Opposition, 
while  the  Republicans  in  this  case  supported  the  policy  of 
the  President,  partly  because  they  were  on  the  side  of  the 
Entente,  partly  because  they  wanted  to  assure  the  in- 
terests of  American  commerce.  As  has  already  been 
mentioned,  Senator  Stone  had  always  maintained  a 
neutral  attitude  to  the  last,  chiefly  because  he  was  one 


236        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

of  the  two  representatives  of  Missouri,  and  could  not 
ignore  the  large  number  of  Germans  among  his  con- 
stituents. For  this  reason  he  was  called  by  the  pro- 
Entente  Press,  like  the  New  York  Herald,  "pro-German 
Mr.  Stone."  Senator  Gore  was  a  Pacifist  on  principle, 
and  thought  that  the  resolution  for  which  he  was  respon- 
sible, to  prohibit  Americans  from  travelling  on  armed 
merchantmen,  would  avert  the  danger  of  war. 

The  whole  Congress  story  can  only  be  read  as  a 
domestic  party  skirmish,  with  a  view  to  the  approaching 
Presidential  election;  one  section  of  the  Democratic 
party  wanted  a  candidate  other  than  Wilson.  Just  as  it 
was  at  that  time  a  mistake  to  expect  any  advantage  from 
the  Congress  Opposition,  so  to-day  a  similar  mistake  is 
made  in  Germany,  when  it  is  assumed  that  the  struggle 
in  the  Senate  over  the  ratification  of  the  Peace  Treaty 
has  a  pro-German  background. 

The  debate  in  Congress  was  not  in  any  way  connected 
with  an  acute  German-American  situation.  It  seems 
necessary  to  give  here  a  short  survey  of  the  negotiations, 
as  they  appeared  from  my  point  of  view.  Our  first  con- 
cession occurred  after  the  Arabic  incident,  our  second 
later,  after  the  Sussex  incident.  Between  these  two  there 
was  never  any  concession  to  America  on  the  part  of 
Germany,  for  the  shelving  of  the  second  Lusitania  crisis 
constituted  a  compromise.  Between  February,  1915,  and 
the  Lusitania  incident  we  were  conducting  an  unre- 
stricted submarine  campaign,  subsequently  a  limited  one, 
though  this  was  not  known  to  America  until  after  the 
sinking  of  the  Arabic;  after  February,  1916,  the  un- 
restricted campaign  was  renewed  until  the  Sussex  inci- 
dent, after  which  cruiser  warfare  was  begun.  This  is 
all  that  concerned  me  in  this  connection.  Internal  differ- 
ences of  opinion  within  the  German  Government,  such  as 
occurred  after  February,  1915,  did  not  make  their  way 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     237 

across  the  Atlantic;  for  instance,  the  resumption  of  the 
unrestricted  submarine  campaign  in  February,  1916,  was 
discussed  with  me  as  little  as  it  was  with  the  American 
Government  itself. 

From  these  facts  it  is  evident  that  the  action  of  Con- 
gress was  of  no  practical  importance  for  us,  for  when, 
after  this  debate,  the  Sussex  incident  occurred — when, 
moreover,  it  was  a  question  of  an  unarmed  ship — Mr. 
Wilson  was  free  to  issue  his  ultimatum,  and  could  also 
have  broken  off  diplomatic  relations,  if  we  had  refused 
to  give  way.  The  American  Government  had  then  no 
thought  of  a  complete  defeat  of  Germany,  such  as  later 
occurred,  for  otherwise  they  could  easily  have  found  an 
excuse  for  coming  into  the  war.  At  that  time  Mr.  Wilson 
was  convinced  that  the  war  would  end  in  a  peace  without 
victory,  for  which  he  intended  to  use  his  influence.  The 
whole  question  was  merely  whether  we  realized  these 
facts  and  would  avail  ourselves  of  them  or  not.  Our  one 
asset  in  America  was  the  disinclination  of  the  majority  of 
the  people  for  war,  for  otherwise — as  appeared  later — it 
would  have  been  only  too  easy  for  the  United  States  to 
make  war  upon  us  with  success. 

The  President  wanted  to  continue  the  policy  he  had 
adopted  hitherto,  by  standing  firm  to  the  point  of  view 
that  the  submarine  war  must  be  conducted  according  to 
the  principles  of  international  law,  and,  further,  was 
waiting  to  see  whether  the  unrestricted  submarine  cam- 
paign would  give  rise  to  any  further  incidents. 

In  a  letter  written  to  Senator  Stone,  on  the  24th  Feb- 
ruary, the  President  denned  his  policy  in  the  following 
terms: 

"You  are  right  in  assuming  that  I  shall  do  everything 
in  my  power  to  keep  the  United  States  out  of  the  war. 
I  think  the  country  will  feel  no  anxiety  about  my  line  of 


238       MY  THBEE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

action  in  this  respect.  I  have  devoted  many  anxious 
months  to  this  task  under  much  greater  difficulties  than 
appeared  on  the  surface,  and  so  far  with  success.  The 
course  which  the  Central  Powers  intend  to  adopt  in 
future  with  regard  to  submarine  warfare,  as  shown  by 
their  Memorandum,  seems  at  the  moment  to  raise  in- 
superable difficulties ;  but  its  contents  are  at  first  sight  so 
difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  specific  assurances  which 
the  Central  Powers  have  recently  given  us  as  to  the  treat- 
ment of  merchant  shipping  on  the  high  seas,  that  I  think 
that  explanations  will  shortly  be  forthcoming  which  will 
throw  a  different  light  on  the  matter.  We  have  in  the 
past  had  no  reason  to  doubt  their  good  faith,  or  the  sin- 
cerity of  their  promises,  and  I,  for  my  part,  am  confident 
that  we  shall  have  none  in  the  future. 

"But  in  any  event  our  duty  is  clear.  No  nation,  no 
group  of  nations,  has  the  right,  while  war  is  in  progress, 
to  alter  or  disregard  the  principles  which  all  nations  have 
agreed  upon  in  mitigation  of  the  horrors  and  sufferings 
of  war;  and  if  the  clear  rights  of  American  citizens 
should  ever  unhappily  be  abridged  or  denied  by  any  such 
action,  we  should,  it  seems  to  me,  have  in  honor  no  choice 
as  to  what  our  own  course  should  be. 

"For  my  own  part,  I  cannot  consent  to  any  abridg- 
ment of  the  rights  of  American  citizens  in  any  respect. 
The  honor  and  self-respect  of  the  Nation  is  involved. 
We  covet  peace,  and  shall  preserve  it  at  any  cost  but  the 
loss  of  honor. 

"To  forbid  our  people  to  exercise  their  rights  for  fear 
we  might  be  called  upon  to  vindicate  them  would  be  a 
deep  humiliation  indeed.  It  would  be  an  implicit,  all  but 
an  explicit,  acquiescence  in  the  violation  of  the  rights 
of  mankind  everywhere  and  of  whatever  nation  or 
allegiance.  It  would  be  a  deliberate  abdication  of  our 
hitherto  proud  position  as  spokesmen,  even  amid  the 


THE   SECOND   "LUSITANIA"   CRISIS     239 

turmoil  of  war,  for  the  law  and  the  right.  It  would  make 
everything  this  Government  has  attempted  and  every- 
thing that  it  has  accomplished  during  this  terrible 
struggle  of  nations  meaningless  and  futile. 

"It  is  important  to  reflect  that  if  in  this  instance  we 
allowed  expediency  to  take  the  place  of  principle  the 
door  would  inevitably  be  opened  to  still  further  con- 
cessions. Once  accept  a  single  abatement  of  right,  and 
many  other  humiliations  would  certainly  follow,  and  the 
whole  fine  fabric  of  international  law  might  crumble 
Tinder  our  hands  piece  by  piece.  What  we  are  contending 
for  in  this  matter  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  things  that 
have  made  America  a  sovereign  nation.  She  cannot  yield 
them  without  conceding  her  own  impotency  as  a  Nation 
and  making  virtual  surrender  of  her  independent  position 
among  the  nations  of  the  world." 

Soon  afterwards — on  the  3rd  March — the  Senate  de- 
cided by  68  votes  to  14  to  postpone  the  discussion  of  the 
Gore  resolution  sine  die.  The  struggle  had  then  already 
ended  in  a  victory  for  Mr.  Wilson  when  I  handed  over 
the  above-mentioned  Memorandum. 

Regarded  from  our  own  point  of  view,  the  declaration 
of  the  "unrestricted  submarine  war"  was  a  serious  po- 
litical mistake,  which  was  not  even  justified  by  the  results 
of  the  measure.  The  least  we  could  have  done  was  to  wait 
for  the  settlement  of  the  Lusitania  question  and  the  sub- 
sequent action  of  Mr.  Wilson.  The  "unrestricted  sub- 
marine war"  was  not  the  right  way  to  improve  our  situa- 
tion, but  was  bound  inevitably  to  lead  to  a  new  conflict 
with  America.  It  was  absolutely  impossible  for  the 
submarine  captains  to  ascertain  with  certainty  through 
the  periscope  whether  an  enemy  merchant  ship  was 
armed  or  not.  Mistakes,  therefore,  were  sure  to  arise 
sooner  or  later.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Americans  would 


240        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

not  refrain  from  travelling  on  enemy  passenger  ships,  as 
their  business  took  them  mostly  to  England  and  France, 
and  there  were  not  enough  of  their  own  or  neutral  ships 
at  their  disposal. 

The  one  hope  for  the  continued  avoidance  of  a  conflict 
was  that  the  Imperial  Government  should  not  withdraw 
the  concessions  they  had  made  on  the  5th  October,  1915, 
with  regard  to  "  liners, "  and  that  enemy  passenger  ships 
should  not  be  unarmed  out  of  regard  for  their  neutral 
passengers. 

There  were,  as  a  rule,  no  Americans  on  cargo  ships,  for 
there  were  at  that  time  few  sailors  in  the  United  States. 
From  the  above-mentioned  letter  of  Mr.  Wilson  to  Mr. 
Stone,  however,  it  appeared  that  the  American  Govern- 
ment regarded  our  concessions  as  applying  to  all  mer- 
chant vessels,  while,  as  I  have  already  stated,  the  German 
naval  authorities  had  only  intended  to  include  passenger 
steamers. 

This  misunderstanding  might  now  give  rise  to  a  fresh 
conflict,  even  if  mistakes  on  the  part  of  submarine 
captains  were  by  special  good  fortune  avoided. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   " SUSSEX""  INCIDENT 

ON  the  24th  March  the  unarmed  passenger-ship  Sussex 
was  torpedoed  without  warning,  and  several  Americans 
lost  their  lives.  The  first  information  about  this  incident 
was  so  vague  that  the  matter  was  at  first  treated  in  a 
dilatory  fashion  in  Washington.  At  the  time  I  sent  the 
following  report  to  Berlin : 

REPORT  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  4th  April,  1916. 

"During  the  fourteen  months  that  have  passed  since 
the  opening  of  the  submarine  campaign  there  have  been 
intermittent  periods  in  which  the  American  Government 
have  shown  themselves  aggressive  towards  us,  and 
others  in  which  the  now  proverbial  expression  'watchful 
waiting*  formed  the  Leit-motif  of  their  attitude.  The 
past  month  belonged  to  the  second  category  until  the 
sinking  of  the  Sussex  and  other  similar  incidents  stirred 
American  public  opinion  to  fresh  excitement.  Officially 
I  have,  during  the  last  four  weeks,  heard  nothing  further 
from  the  American  side  on  the  subject  of  the  submarine 
campaign.  During  this  time  Mr.  Lansing  even  allowed 
himself  a  fortnight's  holiday  for  recuperation.  On  my 
side  there  was  no  occasion  to  reopen  the  submarine  ques- 
tion as  a  complete  understanding  with  the  American 
Government  cannot  be  attained,*  and  in  my  opinion  it  is 
advisable  to  avoid  as  far  as  possible  any  new  crisis  in  our 

•i.e.,  Without  instructions  from  Berlin, 
241 


242        MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

relations  with  the  United  States.  I  therefore  contented 
myself  with  keeping  in  touch  with  Colonel  House  so  that 
I  should  not  be  taken  by  surprise  by  any  volte-face  on 
the  part  of  the  American  Government.  As  soon  as  a  new 
crisis  arises  Mr.  Wilson  will,  as  usual,  be  in  a  fearful 
hurry  and  bring  us  to  the  brink  of  war.  Whether  such  a 
crisis  will  be  precipitated  by  the  Sussex  incident,  and 
whether  the  President  in  that  case  will  shrink  from  war 
at  the  last  moment,  it  is  difficult  to  foretell,  as  this  ques- 
tion— like  all  others  at  the  present  moment — will  be 
viewed  exclusively  from  the  standpoint  of  the  approach- 
ing presidential  election. 

"Except  for  the  surprises  that  are  usual  over  here, 
things  are  at  present  quite  calm.  This  is  due,  in  the  first 
place,  to  the  desire  for  peace  shown  by  the  population, 
who  are  not  anxious  to  be  disturbed  in  their  congenial 
occupation  of  money-making,  and  secondly,  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Mexican  question.  This  latter  question 
stands  in  the  forefront  of  public  interest,  and  it  seems 
to  be  increasingly  probable  that  the  punitive  expedition 
against  Villa  will  lead  to  a  full-dress  intervention.  A 
few  days  ago  it  was  reported  that  Villa  was  defeated, 
then  wounded,  and  finally  even  a  prisoner.  All  this  good 
news  proved  later  to  be  false  and  now  Villa  is  said  to  have 
escaped  south  and  won  over  fresh  supporters.  So  long 
as  the  Mexican  question  holds  the  stage  here  we  are,  I 
believe,  safe  from  an  act  of  aggression  on  the  part  of  the 
American  Government. 

"On  the  other  hand  it  looks  as  though  Mr.  Wilson  were 
looking  for  a  fresh  way  out  of  the  impasse  into  which 
his  attitude  on  the  question  of  the  submarine  campaign 
has  led  him.  As  I  have  already  had  the  honor  to  cable, 
Colonel  House  holds  out  the  prospect  of  an  early  move 
towards  peace  by  the  President.  The  view  is  entertained 
here,  and  strengthened  by  the  impressions  gathered  from 


THE   "  SUSSEX "   INCIDENT  243 

Colonel  House,  that  gradually  the  stress  of  circumstances 
will  force  all  the  neutral  Powers  into  the  war.  If  this 
happens  there  will  be  no  further  prospect  of  the  conclu- 
sion of  peace,  as  there  will  be  no  one  available  to  set  the 
ball  rolling.  It  is  therefore  essential  that  the  foundations 
of  peace  should  be  laid  before  the  world  conflagration 
spreads  any  further  and  finally  destroys  the  prosperity 
of  every  nation.  This  view  may  sound  like  pure  theory, 
but  it  gains  substance  from  the  fact  that  it  can  very  well 
be  made  to  harmonize  with  Mr.  Wilson's  election  cam- 
paign. In  his  capacity  of  founder  of  peace  in  Europe, 
and  peace-maker — i.e.,  indirectly  conqueror — of  Mexico, 
it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  vanquish  Mr. 
Wilson  in  the  election.  Mr.  Theodore  Eoosevelt  would 
then  shout  himself  hoarse  to  no  purpose  and  Mr.  Charles 
Hughes,  the  strongest  Republican  candidate,  would  per- 
haps not  even  go  so  far  as  nomination  if  his  position 
seemed  hopeless. 

In  that  report  I  announced  for  the  first  time  that  Mr. 
Wilson  had  so  far  changed  his  policy  as  now  to  put  peace 
mediation  in  the  foreground  and  to  give  the  question  of 
the  *  Freedom  of  the  Seas'  second  place.  I  shall  return 
later  to  this  political  development. 

When  news  reached  Washington  which  left  no  doubt 
that  the  Sussex  had  been  torpedoed  by  a  German  sub- 
marine, I  immediately  cabled  to  Berlin  for  instructions 
in  order  to  be  in  a  position  to  give  an  official  disavowal 
of  the  act.  It  required  nothing  further  to  convince  me 
that  it  was  now  a  question  of  bend  or  break.  I  had  no 
means  of  knowing  whether  the  supporters  of  the  sub- 
marine campaign  or  the  partisans  of  an  understanding 
with  the  United  States  would  win  the  day.  In  the  former 
case  war  was  inevitable.  To  provide  for  the  second  alter- 
native I  recommended  in  my  cablegram  that  there  should 
be  no  question  of  an  official  exchange  of  Notes,  because  I 


244        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

was  anxious  that  our  withdrawal  should  not  be  accom- 
panied by  a  humiliation.  If  our  Government  were  pre- 
pared to  give  way  I  regarded  as  the  most  appropriate 
modus  procedenti  the  immediate  issue  of  instructions  to 
me,  empowering  me  to  offer  the  American  Government 
satisfaction  and  compensation  for  this  fresh  incident. 
There  was  no  hope  of  purchasing  immunity  from  a  break 
with  any  less  concession  than  a  pledge  to  carry  on  the 
submarine  campaign  for  the  future  in  accordance  with 
the  principles  laid  down  by  international  law  for  cruiser 
warfare.  I  recommended,  however,  a  provisional  cessa- 
tion of  the  submarine  war  on  the  basis  of  an  oral  agree- 
ment with  the  American  Government.  If  this  proposal 
had  been  acted  on,  the  American  Government  would  have 
been  obliged  to  follow  suit  and  there  would  have  been  no 
sharp  exchange  of  Notes,  which  still  further  prejudiced 
the  position  on  both  sides.  If,  after  such  a  pause  in  the 
submarine  war  and  the  establishment  of  a  really  clear 
diplomatic  situation,  Mr.  Wilson  failed  us  and  made  no 
positive  progress  either  with  regard  to  his  programme 
for  the  'Freedom  of  the  Seas'  or  the  conclusion  of  peace, 
we  should  have  held  quite  a  different  position  from  which 
— if  we  really  thought  it  desirable — to  reopen  unrestricted 
submarine  warfare.  We  had  always  made  the  mistake 
of  dealing  in  half-hearted  concessions.  In  my  opinion 
it  was  essential  for  us  to  strive  for  a  complete  under- 
standing with  America  if  we  were  not  prepared  to  carry 
on  the  submarine  campaign  without  regard  to  con- 
sequences. 

No  attention  was  paid  to  my  suggestion  in  Berlin  at 
the  time.  Admiral  von  Tirpitz  had  just  resigned  and  the 
decision  had  been  taken  against  the  continuance  of  un- 
restricted submarine  warfare.  I  do  not  know  why  the 
dispatch  of  an  official  Note  was  preferred  to  the  oral 
negotiations  I  had  suggested,  but  I  think  that  the  decid- 


THE   "SUSSEX"   INCIDENT  245 

ing  factor  was  consideration  for  public  opinion  in  Ger- 
many. 

A  few  days  later  I  cabled  the  following  to  Berlin : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  8th  April,  1916. 

"House  gave  me  a  very  gloomy  view  of  the  position 
with  regard  to  the  Sussex.  At  the  White  House  the 
situation  is  regarded  as  hopeless  because  the  view  is  held 
that,  in  spite  of  Tirpitz's  resignation,  the  German  Gov- 
ernment, with  the  best  will  in  the  world,  cannot  curb  the 
submarine  campaign.  It  has  hitherto  been  merely  due  to 
good  luck  that  no  American  has  lost  his  life  and  any 
moment  might  precipitate  a  crisis  which  would  be  bound 
to  lead  to  a  break.  The  American  Government  are  con- 
vinced that  the  Sussex  was  torpedoed  by  a  German  sub- 
marine. A  repetition  of  such  mistakes  would  be  bound 
to  drive  the  United  States  of  America  into  war  with  us, 
which  Wilson  would  greatly  regret,  as  he  is  anxious — 
as  I  have  already  reported — to  lay  the  foundations  of 
peace  in  a  few  months.  If  the  United  States  were  drawn 
into  the  war  all  hope  of  an  early  peace  would  be  at  an 
end. 

"I  request  to  be  furnished  with  instructions  on  the 
basis  of  which  I  can  pacify  the  Government  here,  which 
now  has  doubts  of  our  bona  fides." 

After  Mr.  Gerard,  apart  from  other  questions  concern- 
ing doubtful  eases  of  torpedoing,  had  also  submitted  a 
similar  inquiry  to  the  Foreign  Office  on  the  subject  of  the 
Sussex  incident,  an  official  reply  was  handed  to  him  on 
the  10th  April  which  read  in  the  following  terms : 

"A  decision  as  to  whether  the  Channel  steamer  Sussex 
was  damaged  by  a  German  submarine  or  not  is  made 
extraordinarily  difficult  owing  to  the  fact  that  no  exact 


246       MY  THREE  YEABS  IN  AMERICA 

information  is  known  as  to  the  place,  time  and  accom- 
panying circumstances  of  the  sinking,  and  moreover  a 
picture  of  this  ship  could  not  be  obtained  until  the  6th 
April.  Consequently  the  inquiry  has  had  to  be  extended 
to  all  submarine  enterprises  which  took  place  on  the  day 
in  question,  24th  March,  in  the  Channel  anywhere  on  the 
course  between  Folkestone  and  Dieppe. 

"In  this  area  on  the  24th  March,  in  the  middle  of  the 
English  Channel,  a  long,  black  vessel,  flying  no  flags,  with 
a  gray  funnel,  small  gray  superstructure  and  two  high 
masts  was  hit  by  a  German  submarine.  The  German 
captain  was  definitely  convinced  that  she  was  a  ship  of 
war,  and  indeed  a  mine-layer  of  the  newly-built  English 
Arabic  class.  He  was  led  to  this  conviction : 

"1.  By  the  flush  deck  of  the  ship. 

"2.  By  the  shape  of  the  stern,  which  sloped  outwards. 

"3.  By  the  paintwork,  which  was  that  of  a  ship  of  war. 

"4.  By  the  high  speed  of  about  eighteen  knots  which 
the  ship  developed. 

"5.  By  the  fact  that  the  ship  was  not  steering  the 
course  north  of  the  light  buoys  between  Dungeness  and 
Beachy  Head  within  which  frequent  observation  had  led 
the  German  submarines  to  keep  a  look  out  for  merchant 
shipping,  but  was  in  mid-Channel,  heading  almost  for 
Le  Havre. 

"Consequently,  the  submarine  fired  a  torepdo  at  3.55 
p.m.  Central  European  time,  1^  knots  southeast  of  the 
Bull  Rock.  The  torpedo  struck,  and  so  heavy  an  ex- 
plosion occurred  that  the  whole  of  the  ship  forward  of 
the  bridge  broke  away.  The  unusually  heavy  explosion 
leaves  no  doubt  that  there  were  large  stores  of  ammuni- 
tion on  board. 

"The  German  captain  has  prepared  a  sketch  of  the 
ship  he  attacked,  of  which  two  copies  are  sent  herewith. 
The  two  copies  of  pictures  of  the  Sussex,  also  enclosed, 


THE  "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  247 

were  photographed  from  the  English  newspaper  The 
Daily  Graphic,  of  the  27th  inst.  A  comparison  of  the 
sketches  and  the  photograph  shows  that  the  vessel  at- 
tacked is  not  identical  with  the  Sussex;  particularly  strik- 
ing is  the  difference  in  the  position  of  the  funnel  and  the 
shape  of  the  stern.  No  other  attack  was  made  by  a  Ger- 
man submarine  on  the  course  between  Folkestone  and 
Dieppe  at  the  time  of  the  Sussex  incident. 

"From  this  the  German  Government  are  obliged  to 
assume  that  the  sinking  of  the  Sussex  is  to  be  set  down 
to  other  causes  than  attack  by  a  German  submarine. 
Some  light  may  be  thrown  on  the  incident  by  the  fact 
that  on  the  1st  and  2nd  April  alone  no  less  than  twenty- 
six  English  mines  were  destroyed  in  the  Channel  by 
German  naval  forces.  In  general  the  whole  of  that  area 
is  rendered  dangerous  by  drifting  mines  and  not  tor- 
pedoes. Off  the  English  coast  the  Channel  is  also  made 
increasingly  dangerous  by  German  mines  which  have 
been  laid  for  the  enemy  naval  forces. 

"If  the  American  Government  should  have  at  their 
disposal  any  further  data  that  may  help  to  elucidate  the 
Sussex  incident,  the  German  Government  beg  that  it  may 
be  communicated  to  them  so  that  they  may  subject  it  to 
examination.  In  the  event  of  differences  of  opinion 
arising  between  the  two  Governments  the  German  Gov- 
ernment now  declare  themselves  ready  to  submit  the 
whole  incident  to  an  International  Commission  in  ac- 
cordance with  tho  third  clause  of  the  'Hague  Convention 
for  the  Pacific  Settlement  of  International  Disputes  of 
the  18th  October,  1907.'  " 

I  have  reproduced  this  Note  in  full  because  its  influence 
was  quite  particularly  fateful  and  because  it  was  probably 
the  most  unfortunate  document  that  ever  passed  from 
Berlin  to  Washington.  Mr.  Wilson  thought  he  detected 


a  direct  untruth,  and  the  mixture  of  an  uneasy  conscience 
and  clumsiness  which  the  German  Note  appeared  to  be- 
tray prompted  the  sharp  tone  of  the  President's  reply. 
For  the  sake  of  his  prestige  Mr.  Wilson  was  now  com- 
pelled by  the  recent  course  of  events  to  take  action, 
although  the  excitement  of  public  opinion  was  this  time 
undoubtedly  less  than  was  the  case  after  the  torpedoing 
of  the  Lusitania  and  the  Arabic.  The  American  Govern- 
ment, therefore,  couched  the  Note  which  they  dispatched 
on  the  18th  April  in  the  terms  of  an  ultimatum.  In  the 
meantime,  the  discovery  in  the  hull  of  the  Sussex  of  a 
piece  of  a  German  torpedo  placed  the  matter  beyond  all 
doubt.  Additional  importance  was  given  to  the  ulti- 
matum by  the  fact  that  before  dispatching  it  Mr.  Wilson 
laid  it  personally  before  Congress  at  a  special  sitting. 

It  is  my  firm  conviction  that  had  it  not  been  for  this 
ultimatum  diplomatic  relations  would  not  have  been 
broken  off  immediately,  even  in  1917.  In  the  increased 
tension  of  the  situation  resulting  from  the  exchange  of 
Notes  on  the  subject  of  the  Sussex  I  see,  therefore,  one  of 
the  immediate  germs  of  the  war  with  America.  After 
this  exchange  of  Notes  a  challenge  in  the  form  of  our 
formal  declaration  of  the  31st  January,  1917,  could  no 
longer  be  tolerated.  The  clumsiness  of  such  formal 
declarations  was,  as  I  have  said,  only  surpassed  by  the 
regrettable  impression  of  a  juristic  argument  produced 
by  our  first  Lusitania  Note. 

As  the  American  ultimatum  later  formed  the  basis  on 
which  the  American  Government,  immediately  after  the 
declaration  of  unrestricted  submarine  warfare,  broke  off 
diplomatic  relations,  I  here  give  the  vital  contents  of  the 
American  Note  of  the  18th  April  verbatim : 

"Again  and  again  the  Imperial  Government  has  given 
its  solemn  assurances  to  the  Government  of  the  United 


THE   "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  249 

States  that  at  least  passenger  ships  would  not  be  dealt 
thus  with,  and  yet  it  has  repeatedly  permitted  its  under- 
sea commanders  to  disregard  those  assurances  with 
entire  impunity.  As  recently  as  February  last  it  gave 
notice  that  it  would  regard  all  armed  merchantmen  owned 
by  its  enemies  as  part  of  the  armed  naval  forces  of  its 
adversaries,  and  deal  with  them  as  with  men-of-war, 
thus,  at  least  by  implication,  pledging  itself  to  give  warn- 
ing to  vessels  which  were  not  armed  and  to  accord 
security  of  life  to  their  passengers  and  crews ;  but  even 
this  limitation  their  submarine  commanders  have  reck- 
lessly ignored. 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  has  been  very 
patient.  At  every  stage  of  this  distressing  experience  of 
tragedy  after  tragedy  it  has  sought  to  be  governed  by  the 
most  thoughtful  consideration  of  the  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances of  an  unprecedented  war,  and  to  be  guided 
by  sentiments  of  very  genuine  friendship  for  the  people 
and  Government  of  Germany.  It  has  accepted  the  suc- 
cessive explanations  and  assurances  of  the  Imperial 
Government  as  of  course  given  in  entire  sincerity  and 
good  faith,  and  has  hoped,  even  against  hope,  that  it 
would  prove  to  be  possible  for  the  Imperial  Government 
so  to  order  and  control  the  acts  of  its  naval  commanders 
as  to  square  its  policy  with  the  recognized  principles  of 
humanity  as  embodied  in  the  law  of  nations.  It  has  made 
every  allowance  for  unprecedented  conditions  and  has 
been  willing  to  wait  until  the  facts  became  unmistakable 
and  were  susceptible  of  only  one  interpretation. 

"If  it  is  still  the  purpose  of  the  Imperial  Government 
to  prosecute  an  indiscriminate  warfare  against  vessels  of 
commerce  by  the  use  of  submarines  without  regard  to 
what  the  Government  of  the  United  States  must  consider 
the  sacred  and  indisputable  rules  of  international  law 
and  the  universally  recognized  dictates  of  humanity,  the 


250        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

Government  of  the  United  States  is  at  last  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  but  one  course  to  pursue.  Unless 
the  Imperial  Government  should  now  immediately  de- 
clare and  effect  an  abandonment  of  its  present  methods 
of  submarine  warfare  against  passenger  and  freight- 
carrying  vessels,  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
can  have  no  choice  but  to  sever  diplomatic  relations  with 
the  German  Empire  altogether.  This  action  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  contemplates  with  the  greatest 
reluctance,  but  feels  constrained  to  take  in  behalf  of 
humanity  and  the  rights  of  neutral  nations." 

After  this  Note  it  is  obvious  that  there  was  no  longer 
any  doubt  in  Berlin,  that  persistence  in  the  point  of  view 
they  had  hitherto  adopted  would  bring  about  a  break  with 
the  United  States,  for  I  received  instructions  to  make  all 
preparations  for  German  merchant  ships  lying  in  Ameri- 
can ports  to  be  rendered  useless  by  the  destruction  of 
their  engines. 

I  also  received  orders  to  arrange  that  Mr.  Gerard,  who 
had  not  been  informed  of  the  minimum  demands  of  the 
American  Government,  should  be  instructed  accordingly. 

My  reply  was  as  follows : 

CABLEGRAM  nr  CIPHER 

"Washington,  1st  May,  1916. 

"House  has  informed  me  that  at  his  request  Gerard 
has  already  been  informed  of  the  minimum  demands  of 
the  American  Government.  Wilson  is  strongly  influenced 
by  peace  votes.  Even  the  anti-German  ring  desires  the 
end  of  the  war,  as  otherwise  they  fear  financial  loss.  My 
suggestions  are  based  on  the  view  that  submarine  war- 
fare, according  to  international  law,  is  valueless,  and  in 
any  case,  the  opening  of  peace  negotiations  is  more  im- 
portant. It  would  be  advisable  in  the  Note  of  reply  to 
touch  only  on  the  principal  points,  to  talk  much  of  inter- 


THE   "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  251 

national  law  and  humanity,  and  to  leave  details  to  be 
settled  at  a  later  date.  I  fear  that  the  continuance  of  the 
submarine  campaign,  on  the  lines  of  cruiser  warfare,  only 
means  the  postponement  of  the  rupture  as  fresh  incidents 
are  bound  to  occur. " 

On  the  4th  May  followed  the  German  reply,  which 
averted  the  fourth  serious  crisis,  by  declaring  that  the 
submarine  campaign  would  return  to  the  recognized  laws 
of  cruiser-warfare.  The  Note  began  by  opposing,  in 
strong  terms,  the  American  view,  and  concluded  with 
the  following  sentences : 

"The  German  Government  feel  themselves  justified  in 
declaring  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  answer  to 
humanity  and  history,  if,  after  twenty-one  months  of  war 
the  contention  over  the  submarine  war  were  allowed  to 
develop  into  a  serious  menace  to  peace  between  the  Ger- 
man and  American  peoples.  Such  a  development  the 
German  Government  will  do  everything  in  their  power  to 
prevent.  They  desire,  at  the  same  time,  to  make  a  final 
contribution  towards  confining — so  long  as  the  war  lasts 
— the  war  to  the  present  combatant  Powers,  an  aim 
which  includes  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  and  in  which  the 
German  Government  believe  themselves  still  to  be  in 
agreement  with  the  Government  of  the  United  States. 

"On  this  assumption  the  German  Government  beg  to 
inform  the  Government  of  the  United  States  that  instruc- 
tions have  been  issued  to  the  German  naval  forces  to 
observe  the  general  principles  of  international  law,  with 
regard  to  the  holding  up,  searching  and  destruction  of 
merchant  vessels,  and  not  to  sink  any  merchant  vessel, 
even  within  the  war  zone,  without  warning  and  rescue  of 
the  passengers  and  crew,  unless  they  attempt  to  escape 
or  offer  resistance. 

"The  German  Government  hope  and  expect  that  these 


252        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

new  instructions  to  the  naval  forces  will  also  remove  in 
the  eyes  of  the  United  States  Government  every  obstacle 
that  might  stand  in  the  way  of  the  realization  of  the  offer 
of  co-operation  contained  in  the  Note  of  the  23rd  July, 
1915,  towards  restoring  the  freedom  of  the  seas  during 
the  war,  and  they  do  not  doubt  that  the  United  States 
Government  will  now  insist  with  all  possible  emphasis 
on  the  immediate  observation  by  the  British  Government 
of  those  international  rules  which  were  universally  ac- 
cepted before  the  war,  and  which  are  specifically  stated  in 
the  Notes  of  the  American  Government  to  the  British 
Government  of  the  28th  December,  1914,  and  the  5th 
November,  1915.  Should  it  happen  that  the  steps  taken 
by  the  Government  of  the  United  States  do  not  meet  with 
the  desired  result  of  insuring  recognition  of  the  laws  of 
humanity  by  all  the  combatant  nations,  the  German  Gov- 
ernment would  consider  themselves  faced  by  a  new  situa- 
tion, for  which  they  must  reserve  for  themselves  full 
freedom  of  decision." 

The  German  Note  reached  the  German  Embassy  piece- 
meal, and  while  the  first  part  was  being  deciphered,  its 
harsh  tone  produced  in  an  increasing  degree  the  im- 
pression :  *  *  Then  it  is  war, ' '  which  was  not  relieved  until 
we  came  to  the  conclusion  of  the  text. 

The  attempt  made  by  the  Imperial  Government  to 
reserve  to  themselves  the  right  to  resume  the  submarine 
campaign  at  a  later  date  was  not  accepted  by  Mr.  Wilson, 
and  so  the  difference  of  opinion  remained,  which  was 
bound  to  become  a  casus  belli  if  we  reverted  to  un- 
restricted submarine  warfare.  This  reservation  led  to  a 
further  Note  from  Washington,  which  I  give  here : 

"The  Note  of  the  Imperial  German  Government  under 
date  of  May  4th,  1916,  has  received  careful  consideration 
by  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  It  is  especially 


253 

noted,  as  indicating  the  purpose  of  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment as  to  the  future,  and  that  it  'is  prepared  to  do  its 
utmost  to  confine  the  operations  of  the  war  for  the  rest 
of  its  duration  to  the  fighting  forces  of  the  belligerents,' 
and  that  it  is  determined  to  impose  on  all  its  commanders 
at  sea  the  limitations  of  the  recognized  rules  of  inter- 
national law  upon  which  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  has  insisted.  Throughout  the  months  which  have 
elapsed  since  the  Imperial  Government  announced  on 
February  4th,  1915,  its  submarine  policy,  now  happily 
abandoned,  the  Government  of  the  United  States  has 
been  constantly  guided  and  restrained  by  motives  of 
friendship  in  its  patient  efforts  to  bring  to  an  amicable 
settlement  the  critical  questions  arising  from  that  policy. 
Accepting  the  Imperial  Government's  declaration  of  its 
abandonment  of  the  policy  which  has  so  seriously  men- 
aced the  good  relations  between  the  two  countries,  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  will  rely  upon  a  scrupu- 
lous execution  henceforth  of  the  now  altered  policy  of 
the  Imperial  Government,  such  as  will  remove  the  prin- 
cipal danger  to  an  interruption  of  the  good  relations 
existing  between  the  United  States  and  Germany. 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  feels  it  neces- 
sary to  state  that  it  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  Imperial 
German  Government  does  not  intend  to  imply  that  the 
maintenance  of  its  newly-announced  policy  is  in  any  way 
contingent  upon  the  course  or  result  of  diplomatic  nego- 
tiations between  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
and  any  other  belligerent  Government,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  certain  passages  in  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment's Note  of  the  4th  instant  might  appear  to  be  suscep- 
tible of  that  construction.  In  order,  however,  to  avoid 
any  possible  misunderstanding,  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  notifies  the  Imperial  Government  that  it 
cannot  for  a  moment  entertain,  much  less  discuss,  a  sug- 


254       MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

gestion  that  respect  by  German  naval  authorities  for  the 
rights  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  upon  the  high 
seas  should  in  any  way  or  in  the  slightest  degree  be  made 
contingent  upon  the  conduct  of  any  other  Government 
affecting  the  rights  of  neutrals  and  non-combatants. 
Responsibility  in  such  matters  is  single,  not  joint ;  abso- 
lute, not  relative." 

This  American  Note,  however,  in  no  way  affected  the 
peaceful  conclusion  of  the  negotiations. 

As  a  direct  result  of  the  Sussex  incident,  a  step  forward 
was  taken  in  the  question  of  American  peace  mediation. 
When  I  called  on  Colonel  House,  during  the  last  days  of 
the  crisis,  we  had  a  long  conversation  on  this  question. 
As  always,  Colonel  House  had  used  his  influence  on  the 
side  of  peace  with  regard  to  the  Sussex  incident.  He 
took  this  opportunity  to  convey  to  me  the  pleasing  news 
contained  in  a  cablegram  from  Mr.  Gerard,  that  the  Ger- 
man Government  were  now  ready  to  agree  to  American 
mediation. 

This  cablegram  was  the  outcome  of  the  following  facts : 
Mr.  Gerard,  on  account  of  his  anti-German  tendency,  was 
not  popular  in  Berlin.  He  regarded  it  as  a  personal 
slight  that  the  most  important  negotiations  should  have 
been  carried  on  partly  in  Washington,  and  partly  by 
Colonel  House  in  Berlin.  The  Ambassador  wanted, 
therefore,  to  use  the  opportunity  of  the  Sussex  incident 
to  assert  himself,  and  expressed  a  desire  to  visit  G.H.Q. 
and  explain  the  American  point  of  view  in  person  to  the 
Emperor.  On  the  1st  May,  Mr.  Gerard  was  received  by 
the  Emperor,  in  the  presence  of  the  Imperial  Chancellor, 
on  which  occasion  he  received  the  assurance  contained 
in  his  telegram.  Karl  Helfferich's  account  in  Weltkrieg 
gives  the  impression  that  the  question  of  American 
mediation  was  mentioned  for  the  first  time  on  the  1st 


THE   "SUSSEX"   INCIDENT  255 

May.  The  two  journeys  of  Colonel  House,  which  were  of 
far  greater  importance  than  Mr.  Gerard's  visit  to  G.H.Q., 
are  not  mentioned  in  the  Helfferich  account.  For  the  rest 
I  have  to  rely  for  my  information  about  events  in  Ger- 
many on  this  and  other  publications,  in  addition  to  the 
evidence  given  before  the  •  Commission  of  the  National 
Assembly.  In  any  case,  Colonel  House  regarded  the  tele- 
gram from  Berlin  as  the  sequel  of  his  own  negotiations 
there,  which  point  was  placed  beyond  all  doubt  by  the 
text  of  the  information  he  communicated  to  me*  In  order 
to  inform  myself  on  my  side  also  as  to  the  attitude  of  our 
Government,  I  sent  the  following  telegram  to  Berlin,  to 
ascertain  whether  the  information  from  the  American 
Ambassador  was  in  accordance  with  the  facts : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER  . 

"Washington,  No.  26,  4th  May. 

"House  informs  me  that  Gerard  has  cabled  that  we 
would  agree  to  the  President's  mediation,  and  that  a  visit 
from  House  to  Berlin,  with  this  object,  would  be  wel- 
comed. Nothing  known  here  about  solution  of  Lusitania 
question.  Mediation  naturally  depends  on  this  running 
smoothly,  which  would  be  most  easily  assured  by  cessa- 
tion of  submarine  campaign  during  negotiations." 

I  received  the  following  reply  from  the  Imperial 
Chancellor : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Berlin,  6th  May,  1916. 
"Reply  to  telegram  No.  26. 
"For  Your  Excellency's  information. 

"We  hope  that  our  Note  and  great  concession  finally 
removes  cause  of  mistrust,  and  opens  era  of  greater 


256        MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

mutual  confidence.  Animosity  of  public  opinion  here 
against  Wilson,  as  result  of  tone  and  contents  of  his 
Note  and  impression  of  parti  pris  against  us,  however, 
so  great  that  he  must  take  open  and  unmistakable  action 
with  regard  to  England  before  he  would  be  accepted  as 
unbiassed  mediator  by  German  people.  To  this  extent 
Gerard's  telegram  is  premature.  If  Wilson  neglects  to 
take  such  action,  there  is  danger  that  the  animosity  may 
become  irremediable  and  possibility  of  mediation  driven 
into  distant  future.  Smoothing  the  way  for  peace,  of 
course,  always  desired.  Action  against  England,  how- 
ever, seems  necessary  to  encourage  conciliatory  attitude 
there,  if  a  peace  exclusively  favorable  to  England  is  to 
be  avoided. 

"If  it  is  found  impossible  to  induce  England  to  discuss 
peace  with  us,  even  though  unofficially  perhaps  at  first, 
we  shall,  as  England  refuses  to  return  to  the  provisions 
of  the  Declaration  of  London,  be  placed  in  an  absolutely 
free  position  with  regard  to  our  great  concession  amount- 
ing to  abandonment  of  submarine  campaign.  A  visit 
from  House  very  welcome  here  at  any  time. 

' '  BETHMANN-HOLLWEG.  " 

Karl  Helfferich's  account  confirms  the  view  I  held  at 
that  time,  that  our  concessions  in  respect  of  the  sub- 
marine campaign  were  essentially  prompted  by  the  hope 
of  mediation  by  Mr.  Wilson.  The  following  words  of  the 
Emperor  make  this  plain : 

"In  politics  it  is  necessary,  before  all  things,  to  know 
the  other  party's  point  of  view;  for  politics  are  a  ques- 
tion of  give  and  take.  Gerard's  utterances  had  made  it 
clear  that  Wilson  was  seeking  a  ladder  for  re-election.  It 
was  better,  then,  that  we  should  offer  him  the  ladder  of 


THE   "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  257 

peace  than  the  ladder  of  war,  which  will  eventually  fall 
on  our  own  heads." 

Moreover,  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg  has  declared 
before  the  Commission  of  the  National  Assembly  that  he 
had  expressed  to  Mr.  Gerard  the  hope  that  the  President 
would  now  take  steps  to  bring  about  the  restoration  of 
peace. 

When,  at  that  time,  Colonel  House  was  discussing  with 
me  the  German  reservation  in  the  Note  of  the  4th  May, 
in  connection  with  the  questions  of  the  "Freedom  of  the 
Seas"  and  peace,  he  said  that  the  circumstances  were 
then  such  that  the  President  no  longer  possessed  the 
power  to  compel  England  to  observe  international  law. 
England  would  only  give  way  before  the  menace  of  war. 
In  view,  however,  of  the  state  of  natural  feeling  in  the 
United  States,  and  the  development  of  trade  relations 
between  America  and  the  Entente,  war  with  England  was 
out  of  the  question.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Wilson 
possessed  the  power  to  bring  about  peace,  because  on  this 
question  he  could  rely  on  the  support  of  the  majority  of 
the  American  nation.  When  the  time  was  ripe,  the  Presi- 
dent would  take  the  desired  steps,  but  a  neutral  act  of 
this  nature  would  be  cried  down  by  the  very  active  En- 
tente party  in  the  United  States  as  pro-German,  and 
could  only  be  carried  through  if  the  national  feeling 
towards  Germany  took  a  more  friendly  turn.  It  was, 
therefore,  necessary  that  there  should  be  a  period  of  lull, 
during  which  Germany  should  possibly  not  be  discussed 
at  all.  The  approaching  hot  season  and  the  usual  exodus 
of  political  personages  from  Washington  to  the  country 
would  offer  a  favorable  opportunity  to  let  all  negotia- 
tions rest,  especially  as,  after  the  settlement  of  the 
Sussex  question,  no  new  incidents  were  to  be  expected. 
Colonel  House's  remarks  accurately  reflected  the  actual 


258        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

position  in  the  United  States  at  the  time.  I  could  not  but 
express  my  agreement,  and  felt  no  doubt  that  the  Ameri- 
can mediation  would  begin  in  the  late  summer.  After 
our  giving  way  on  the  submarine  question,  in  order  to 
avoid  a  break  with  the  United  States,  I  regarded  it  as 
certain  that  we  would  not  directly  bring  about  the  rupture 
which  had  just  been  averted  with  such  difficulty  by  re- 
opening the  unrestricted  submarine  campaign,  for  in 
view  of  the  American  ultimatum  of  the  18th  April,  1916, 
there  was  no  alternative. 

I  should  like  to  take  this  opportunity  of  making  clear 
that  I  always  regarded  American  mediation  as  the  only 
possible  way  out  of  the  war.  I  had  no  faith  in  the  sub- 
marine campaign  as  likely  to  save  the  situation,  because 
the  entry  of  the  United  States  into  the  war  would  more 
than  outweigh  all  the  advantages  that  the  submarines 
could  bring  us.  On  the  other  hand,  I  was  convinced  that, 
if  the  American  Government  established  a  peace  con- 
ference, this  would  be  sure  to  lead  to  peace  itself.  It 
could  not  be  imagined  that,  in  view  of  the  nations'  need 
of  peace,  such  a  conference  could  break  up  without  having 
reached  any  result.  Moreover,  after  the  meeting  of  a 
conference,  the  United  States  would  no  longer  be  in  a 
position  to  enter  the  war,  because  American  public  opin- 
ion would  not  have  allowed  it.  But  without  the  help  of 
the  United  States,  the  Entente  could  not  win.  It  resolved 
itself,  therefore,  into  a  question  of  the  skill  of  our  nego- 
tiators to  ensure  a  tolerable  peace  for  us,  as  the  result  of 
the  conference.  Diplomatic  negotiations  have  a  way  of 
ending  owing  to  general  weariness,  in  which  case  the 
party  which  holds  the  best  cards  secures  the  greatest 
advantages.  If  this  happened,  we  should  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  position  as  our  military  gains  would  give 
us  a  strong  lever  in  the  negotiations. 

Here  I  may  touch  on  another  question  which  was  en- 


THE   "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  259 

gaging  my  attention  at  that  time.  Since  the  Lusitania 
catastrophe  I  had  adopted  the  principle,  and  put  it  into 
practice  as  far  as  possible,  of  leaving  the  propaganda  to 
our  American  friends,  who  were  in  a  position  to  get  an 
earlier  hearing  than  we,  and  in  any  case  understood  the 
psychology  of  the  Americans  better  than  the  Imperial 
German  agents.  Indeed,  the  words  "German  propagan- 
dist" had  already  become  a  term  of  abuse  in  America. 
We  were  reproached  there  with  being  too  indulgent,  while 
in  Germany  the  opposite  criticism  was  levelled  at  us.  In 
spite  of  the  difficulty  of  the  situation,  however,  there  were 
Americans  of  German  and  other  origin,  who  had  the 
courage  openly  to  champion  our  cause  and  to  swim 
against  the  stream.  Among  others,  a  "Citizens'  Com- 
mittee for  Food  Shipments"  was  formed,  whose  activities 
spread  through  the  whole  country,  and  were  avowedly 
pro- German.  A  special  function  of  the  committee  with 
Dr.  von  Mach  as  executive  chief,  was  a  month  of  propa- 
ganda throughout  the  country,  with  the  object  of  obtain- 
ing the  means  to  supply  the  children  of  Germany  with 
milk.  The  English  control  of  the  post  even  led  to  the 
bold  plan  of  building  a  submarine  to  run  the  milk  through 
the  English  blockade.  The  propaganda  was  very  vigor- 
ously attacked  by  the  greater  part  of  the  American  Press, 
but  pursued  its  course  unafraid,  collected  money,  sub- 
mitted protests  to  the  State  Department  against  the 
attitude  of  the  Entente,  and  so  on. 

Dr.  von  Mach  succeeded  in  bringing  the  matter  to  the 
notice  of  the  President  who  actively  interested  himself  in 
it,  and  promised  to  see  that  the  milk  should  pass  the 
English  blockade  and  reach  Germany  in  safety.  Accord- 
ingly, the  State  Department  instructed  the  American 
Embassy  in  Berlin  to  issue  a  statement.  Meanwhile,  the 
well-known  American  journalist,  McClure,  returned  from 
a  tour  of  investigation  in  Germany,  where  he  had  been 


supported  in  every  way  by  the  German  Government  de- 
partments. He  gave  a  very  favorable  account  of  the 
milk  question,  as  of  the  feeding  of  infants  in  general,  and 
this  gave  rise  to  the  first  disagreeable  controversy.  Mr. 
McClure  took  up  an  unyielding  attitude.  Unfortunately, 
however,  the  State  Department  then  published  an  equally 
favorable  report,  which,  coming  from  the  American  Em- 
bassy and  published  with  the  approval  of  the  Foreign 
Office  in  Berlin,  caused  the  complete  collapse  of  Dr. 
von  Mach.  This  incident  made  a  very  painful  impres- 
sion in  America,  and  led  to  a  series  of  bitter  attacks 
on  Dr.  von  Mach  and  the  whole  movement,  which  was 
thus  exposed  in  a  most  unfortunate  light.  The  favorable 
report  on  the  milk  question  was  drawn  up  by  a  Dr.  E.  A. 
Taylor,  and  definitely  confirmed,  and,  indeed,  inspired, 
by  the  German  authorities. 

I  mention  this  incident  to  show  that  our  propaganda 
was  not  by  any  means  made  easier  by  Germany,  although 
our  Press  Bureau  repeatedly  brought  up  this  very  ques- 
tion in  Berlin.  This  movement  was  particularly  dear 
to  us,  because  the  Americans  are  most  easily  won  over 
when  an  appeal  is  made  to  their  humanity.  Moreover,  the 
favorable  reports  on  the  question  of  supplies  in  Germany 
did  not  coincide  in  any  way  with  our  defence  of  the  sub- 
marine campaign  as  an  act  of  reprisal.  This  method  of 
propaganda  from  home  lost  us  our  best  argument.  Even 
to-day  the  majority  of  Americans  certainly  have  no  idea 
how  many  children  have  been  murdered  by  the  blockade. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking  occurred  also  the 
much  discussed  Bolo  affair.  It  is  quite  astonishing  how 
many  lies  were  told  before  the  commission  of  inquiry  of 
the  American  Senate  with  regard  to  this  affair.  Among 
others,  hotel  servants,  chauffeurs,  etc.,  were  sworn,  and 
gave  evidence  that  I  had  met  Bolo  in  the  apartments  of 
Mr.  Hearst.  True,  I  have  often  visited  Mr.  Hearst,  which 


THE   "SUSSEX?  INCIDENT  261 

goes  without  saying,  as  he  was  the  only  important 
newspaper  proprietor  who  maintained  a  neutral  attitude 
throughout  the  war.  I  did  not,  however,  meet  Bolo, 
either  there  or  anywhere  else;  I  have  never  made  his 
acquaintance,  or  even  seen  him  in  the  distance.  I  heard 
his  name  for  the  first  time  when  he  was  brought  up  for 
trial  in  Paris. 

If  the  statements  made  before  the  commission  of  in- 
quiry are  to  be  relied  on  in  any  point  at  all,  it  is  to  be 
assumed  that  Bolo  first  came  to  America  to  arrange  a 
combine  between  the  Journal  and  the  Hearst  Press.  This 
combine  was  to  support  the  cause  of  Pacifism  after  the 
war.  Who  Bolo's  principal  was  I  do  not  know,  but  so 
much  seems  to  be  established,  that  he  was  connected  with 
the  Journal.  Apparently,  Bolo  wanted  to  sell  shares  in 
this  paper  to  Mr.  Hearst,  in  order  to  acquire  funds  for 
the  Pacifist  agitation.  This  theory  seems  justified  since 
Bolo,  on  the  voyage  to  America,  got  into  touch  with  Mr. 
Bartelli,  Hearst 's  representative  in  Paris.  The  latter  did 
fall  in  with  Bolo's  ideas. 

Later — whether  intentionally  or  not  I  do  not  know — 
Bolo  met  the  co-proprietor  of  the  firm  Amsinck  and  Co., 
Herr  Pavenstedt,  who  was  one  of  the  most  respected,  if 
not  the  most  respected,  Imperial  German  in  New  York, 
and  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  members  of  the 
Embassy.  Herr  Pavenstedt,  who  as  a  private  citizen  was 
not  in  a  position  to  accept  Bolo's  suggestions,  then 
travelled  to  Washington  to  lay  the  matter  before  me. 
He  gave  me  to  understand  that  a  French  acquaintance  of 
long  standing,  for  whose  good  faith  he  could  vouch,  had 
come  to  America  to  raise  funds  for  a  Pacifist  agitation  in 
France.  He  said  that  national  feeling  in  that  country 
had  reached  a  point  which  promised  success  for  such  a 
movement,  if  the  prospect  could  be  held  out  of  a  peace 
by  negotiation.  Herr  Pavenstedt  said  that  he  could  not, 


262        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

Tinder  any  circumstances,  disclose  the  gentleman 's  name. 
As  the  plans  of  the  Frenchman  recommended  by  Herr 
Pavenstedt  coincided  with  my  policy  for  bringing  about 
a  peace  by  negotiation,  and  I  had  absolute  confidence  in 
Herr  Pavenstedt,  I  communicated  the  matter  to  Berlin, 
where  the  necessary  money  was  granted.  Later,  the 
breaking  off  of  diplomatic  relations  with  the  United 
States  interrupted  the  policy  I  had  initiated,  and  also  put 
an  end  to  any  prospect  of  effecting  a  change  of  feeling 
in  France,  where  the  hope  of  American  assistance  re- 
vived enthusiasm  for  the  war. 

I  do  not  know  how  Bolo's  enterprise  came  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  French  Government.  In  any  case  this  cannot 
have  been  due  to  the  deciphering  of  my  telegrams  to 
Berlin,  as  I  did  not  know  Bolo's  name.  Owing  to  this 
ignorance  on  my  part  it  was  arranged  between  Herr 
Pavenstedt  and  myself,  at  a  second  interview,  that  the 
anonymous  Frenchman  should  at  a  given  time  address 
further  communications  on  the  progress  of  the  move- 
ment to  our  Embassy  at  Bern  under  the  pseudonym  "St. 
Regis." 

At  the  time  of  the  Sussex  crisis  a  further  awkward 
incident  occurred  which  took  us  back  to  the  days  of  con- 
spiracies. In  consequence  of  the  Welland  Canal  case  the 
American  secret  police  came  down  upon  Herr  von  Igel, 
the  representative  of  the  Military  Attache,  in  his  New 
York  office,  for  alleged  complicity,  arrested  him  by  force 
and  seized  papers  which  were  found  on  his  table.  I  im- 
mediately laid  a  protest  before  the  State  Department, 
whereupon  Herr  von  Igel  was  set  at  liberty  and  a  long 
international  controversy  arose  which  had  not  come  to  an 
end  when  Herr  von  Igel  returned  with  me  to  Germany. 
The  American  Law  Department  maintained  that  Herr 
von  Igel  was  suspected  of  complicity  in  a  legal  offence, 
that  he  could  not  therefore  plead  extra-territoriality,  and 


THE   "SUSSEX'*  INCIDENT  263 

must  stand  his  trial  before  an  American  Court.  The 
State  Department,  it  is  true,  had  doubts  as  to  whether 
an  office  in  New  York  could  be  recognized  as  extra- 
territorial, but  for  the  rest  maintained  a  correct  attitude 
and  refused  to  agree  to  the  opening  of  proceedings 
against  Herr  von  Igel. 

The  seized  documents  were  handed  over  to  the  State 
Department,  where  they  probably  still  lie.  The  State 
Department  declared  to  me  their  readiness  to  hand  back 
the  papers  if  I  wished  to  declare  them  Embassy  docu- 
ments. I,  however,  thought  that  an  attempt  might  be 
made  later  to  use  such  a  declaration  against  me  as  a  trap 
and  I  rejected  the  offer  to  return  the  papers  on  these 
conditions,  as  they  were  of  no  further  importance  to  us. 
If  there  was  among  them  material  which  could  be  used 
against  the  former  Attaches  it  might  be  assumed  that  the 
Law  Department  would  long  ago  have  had  the  documents 
copied. 

The  Igel  affair  had  no  definite  political  result,  as  the 
American  Government  dropped  all  controversies  when 
they  began  to  take  up  the  question  of  mediation. 

To  return  to  the  settlement  of  the  Sussex  incident,  it 
should  be  mentioned  that  our  surrender  on  the  submarine 
question  was  widely  resented  in  Germany.  Further,  it 
caused  a  check  in  submarine  construction.  At  least, 
Secretary  of  State  von  Capelle  has  declared  before  the 
Commission  of  the  National  Assembly  that  an  extensive 
submarine  construction  programme  had  to  be  abandoned 
because  it  would  have  been  too  sharp  a  contrast  with 
Germany's  attitude  after  the  settlement  of  the  Sussex 
affair.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  submarine  construction  was 
never  carried  on  with  full  vigor  after  1916,  as  has  been 
pointed  out  by  Messrs.  Struve,  Gothein  and  Co.  In  the 
light  of  this  the  gravity  of  the  decision  in  1917  to  resort 
to  unrestricted  submarine  warfare  is  doubled.  It  will 


264        MY   THREE   YEAKS   IN   AMERICA 

be  seen  clearly  here  how  our  divided  policy  on  the  one 
hand  permanently  crippled  the  submarine  policy  and  on 
the  other  that  of  mediation. 

To  conclude  the  Sussex  question,  I  will  add  one  more 
telegram  which  I  sent  to  the  Foreign  Office  after  Secre- 
tary of  State  Lansing  had  publicly  mentioned  an  Anglo- 
American  agreement — a  remark  which  in  Berlin  was 
taken  to  mean  that  America  had  formed  an  alliance  with 
England.  It  is  well  known  that  during  the  war  such  a 
statement  has  frequently  been  made. 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHEB 

"Washington,  21st  May,  1916. 

"I  am  working  confidentially  in  co-operation  with 
House  for  the  settlement  of  such  still  unsettled  questions 
as  the  Lusitania  and  the  Igel  cases,  so  as  to  clear  the  air 
completely.  Feeling  here  now  more  favorable  owing  to 
the  influence  of  the  Irish  executions.  Wilson  regards 
conflict  with  us  as  a  thing  of  the  past  and  desires  to  let 
things  rest  and  soon  to  lay  the  foundations  of  peace. 
Lansing's  speech  as  to  Anglo-American  agreement  refers 
to  the  Bryan  agreement.  He  desired  to  make  clear  that 
war  with  England  because  of  the  blockade  is  out  of  the 
question,  and  therefore  there  is  no  means  of  bringing 
pressure  to  bear.  The  speech  coincides  with  the  Ameri- 
can view  I  have  already  reported  that  it  would  be  easier 
to  bring  the  war  to  an  end  than  to  force  England  to  raise 
the  blockade." 

Hitherto  I  have  not  mentioned  the  different  German 
vessels  which  visited  United  States  ports  during  the  war. 
Besides  their  history  is  well  known.  I  will  therefore 
only  describe  their  psychological  influence  and  my  own 
experiences. 


THE  "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  265 

The  auxiliary  cruisers  Kronprinz  Friedrich  WiLhelm 
and  Eitel  Friedrich  were  the  first  German  ships  to  enter 
Hampton  Koads,  there  to  be  interned. 

Much  more  interest  was  aroused  by  the  arrival  on  the 
15th  February,  1916,  of  the  Appam,  because  it  was  then  a 
long  time  since  the  German  flag  had  been  seen  on  the 
American  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  facts  are  familiar 
to  German  readers  from  Count  Dohna's  Move  book. 
Lieutenant  Berg's  exploit  met  with  general  appreciation 
in  the  United  States,  especially  as  his  conduct  was  com- 
pletely in  accord  with  the  American  conception  of  inter- 
national law.  Even  to-day  I  can  hear  the  tone  of  abso- 
lute conviction  in  which  Secretary  of  State  Lansing  told 
me  at  the  Metropolitan  Club  that  the  voyage  of  the 
Appam  was  a  "marvellous  achievement." 

In  the  far-off  future,  students  of  international  law  will 
quote  the  Appam  case  as  a  classic.  At  the  German  Em- 
bassy in  Washington  volumes  were  filled  with  the  opin- 
ions of  eminent  lawyers,  for  the  incident  was  not  treated 
politically  by  the  American  Government,  but  submitted 
to  the  courts.  Meanwhile  the  Appam  remained  interned 
in  Hampton  Eoads  as  a  prize.  The  case  was  not  settled 
until  after  the  breaking-off  of  diplomatic  relations,  when 
it  was  no  longer  of  any  importance  to  us. 

The  interest  roused  by  the  Appam  shrank  into  nothing 
before  the  excitement  caused  by  the  arrival  of  the  sub- 
marine Deutschland  on  the  8th  July,  1916.  Apart  from 
those  that  followed  the  agreement  on  the  Arabic  incident, 
the  few  days  after  the  arrival  of  the  Deutschland  were 
the  pleasantest  I  experienced  in  America  during  the  war. 
Feeling  on  all  sides  was  openly  friendly,  and  Captain 
Konig  was  the  most  popular  man  in  the  United  States. 
If  we  had  sent  ten  such  merchant  submarines  to  America 
and  for  the  rest  had  carried  on  the  submarine  campaign 
according  to  the  principles  laid  down  for  cruiser  warfare, 


266       MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

we  should  have  attained  far  greater  political  results  than 
has  been  the  case. 

The  arrival  of  the  submarine  Deutschland  at  Baltimore 
and  Captain  Konig's  first  visit  to  the  town  resembled  a 
triumphal  procession.  I  had  intended  to  go  there  at  once 
to  welcome  the  hero  of  the  day  and  his  bold  seamen,  but 
thought  it  better  to  wait  and  see  what  would  be  the  Amer- 
ican attitude  towards  the  protests  of  the  English  and 
French  Ambassadors,  who  had  both  claimed  that  the 
Deutschland,  as  a  submarine,  should  be  regarded  without 
hesitation  as  a  ship  of  war.  On  the  13th  July  a  most 
minute  inspection  of  the  Deutschland  was  made  by  an 
American  Government  Commission  consisting  of  three 
naval  officers,  and  she  was  recognized  as  a  genuine  mer- 
chant vessel.  In  consequence  the  Deutschland  had  a  right 
to  lie  at  Baltimore  as  long  as  was  necessary  to  take  a 
cargo  on  board  for  the  return  journey.  It  was  now 
possible  for  me  to  pay  an  official  visit  to  Baltimore  and 
to  view  the  Deutschland.  The  Mayor  of  the  town  accom- 
panied me  and  went  down  with  me,  in  spite  of  the  terrific 
heat  of  about  40°  centigrade,  into  the  lowest  parts  of  the 
submarine,  which  cost  the  stoutly-built  gentleman  consid- 
erable effort  and  a  good  deal  of  perspiration.  In  the 
evening  the  Mayor  gave  a  banquet  which  passed  off  as 
in  the  good  days  before  the  war.  The  rooms  were  deco- 
rated with  German  and  American  flags,  the  band  played 
the  "Wacht  am  Rhein,"  and  many  speeches  were  made 
on  the  good  relations  between  the  two  countries. 

Again  on  her  second  visit,  which  took  place  in  October 
in  New  London  (Connecticut),  the  Deutschland  met  with 
a  very  friendly  reception,  even  though  the  atmosphere 
was  appreciably  cooler.  Feeling  in  the  New  England 
state  has  always  been  particularly  unfavorable  to  us. 
But  there,  too,  I  passed  a  very  pleasant  day  with  Captain 
Konig, 


THE  "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  267 

In  contrast  to  the  moral  gain  of  the  visit  of  the  Deutsch- 
land  was  the  generally  unfavorable  impression  created 
by  the  visit  at  the  same  time  of  the  U53.  Quite  unexpect- 
edly I  received  the  news  that  a  German  submarine  had 
arrived  at  Newport,  the  captain  of  which  had  reported 
himself  to  the  American  commandant  and  had  handed 
him  a  letter  addressed  to  me.  The  letter  attracted  a  good 
deal  of  attention  in  the  Press,  but  it  actually  contained 
nothing  further  than  the  introduction  of  the  captain.  The 
episode  of  the  U53  was,  from  a  political  point  of  view, 
most  undesirable  and  of  no  military  value.  When,  more- 
over, a  few  days  later  the  news  arrived  that  the  U53  had 
sunk  several  ships  off  the  American  coast — always,  it  is 
true,  according  to  international  law — the  incident  as- 
sumed a  fairly  serious  aspect.  Meanwhile  I  travelled 
direct  to  Shadow  Lawn,  the  President's  beautiful  summer 
residence  on  the  New  Jersey  coast,  to  hand  to  Mr.  "Wilson 
a  letter  from  the  Emperor.  The  President  had  appealed 
to  the  Heads  of  all  the  combatant  States  to  urge  them  to 
permit  relief  to  starving  Poland,  as  had  been  done  for 
Belgium.  As  was  to  be  expected,  the  Entente  rejected 
the  proposal  while  the  Central  Powers  agreed  to  it.  The 
Emperor's  approval  was  contained  in  the  letter  which 
I  brought  to  Mr.  Wilson. 

The  President  took  this  opportunity  to  speak  to  me 
very  seriously  on  the  cruise  of  the  U53,  and  urged  me  to 
see  to  it  that  this  incident  was  not  repeated.  Otherwise 
he  could  not  be  responsible  for  public  feeling  in  the 
United  States,  which  might  again  become  very  bitter. 
The  affair  was  very  disagreeable  to  me  personally,  be- 
cause I  was  building  hopes  on  Mr.  Wilson's  mediation 
and  because  I  feared  that  the  cruise  of  the  U53  would 
be  interpreted  as  an  attempt  on  our  part  to  put  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  the  President's  re-election.  It  might  be 
assumed  that  his  Republican  opponents  would  say  that 


268        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

Germany  could  now  do  what  she  liked,  as  Mr.  Wilson 
had  never  adopted  energetic  measures. 

On  the  subject  of  this  conversation  with  Mr.  Wilson 
I  sent  the  following  telegram  to  the  foreign  office : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  llth  October,  1916. 

"I  had  a  conversation  with  Mr.  Wilson  on  the  occasion 
of  handing  over  the  Emperor's  autograph  letter  with 
regard  to  Polish  relief.  The  President  is  anxious  to 
carry  the  matter  further  and  asked  me  how  this  could 
best  be  done.  1  replied  that  the  difficulties  lay  exclu- 
sively on  the  English  side. 

"The  cruiser  warfare  undertaken  by  our  submarines 
off  the  American  coast  is  naturally  regarded  by  Mr.  Wil- 
son with  anxiety,  because  all  his  hopes  of  re-election  are 
based  exclusively  on  the  fact  that  according  to  the  opinion 
held  over  here  he  has  kept  the  United  States  out  of  the 
war  and  in  spite  of  that  has  put  an  end  to  our  so-called 
illegal  attacks  on  American  lives.  His  whole  position 
falls  to  pieces  if  American  lives  are  lost  now,  or  if  indig- 
nation is  aroused  by  a  submarine  campaign  off  the  Amer- 
ican coast.  So  far  this  has  not  occurred.  The  exploit 
of  U53  is  even  hailed  as  a  sporting  achievement.  This 
view  will,  however,  be  changed  if  the  incident  is  repeated. 
For  this  reason  Wilson  spoke  plainly  about  a  continuance 
of  the  submarine  campaign  off  the  American  coast.  He 
regarded  as  particularly  serious  the  fact  that  two  neutral 
ships  were  sunk,  as  well  as  a  Canadian  passenger  vessel 
making  for  the  United  States.  He  said  that  such  inci- 
dents could  not  be  understood  by  the  American  public/' 

To  this  telegram  I  received  from  the  Imperial  Chan- 
cellor the  following  reply: 


THE  "SUSSEX"  INCIDENT  269 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Berlin,  4th  October,  1916. 

"England  entirely  responsible  for  difficulties  with  re- 
gard to  Polish  relief.  For  Your  Excellency's  exclusive 
information  it  is  not  intended  to  continue  submarine  cam- 
paign off  American  coast.  Final  decision  as  to  activity 
of  U53  not  possible  until  she  returns.  Our  concessions 
to  America  are  being  strictly  observed  and  will  be  until 
explicitly  revoked. 

'  *  BETHMANN-HOLLWEG.  ' ' 


CHAPTER  X 
AMERICAN  MEDIATION 

AT  midsummer,  1916,  the  political  lull  desired  by 
Colonel  House  actually  set  in.  The  Colonel  betook  him- 
self to  one  of  the  beautiful  lakes  of  New  Hampshire,  in 
the  far  north  of  the  United  States,  where  in  the  ordinary 
way  I  could  only  reach  him  by  letter  or  telegram.  How 
secret  we  kept  our  communications  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that,  according  to  agreement,  I  wrote  and  telegraphed  to 
Colonel  House  under  the  pseudonym  " Martin."  This 
caution  proved  to  be  fully  justified,  as  the  inquiry  by  the 
Senate  Committee  has  shown  that  the  letters  from  the 
Embassy  were  frequently  opened  by  agents  of  the  En- 
tente propaganda,  whether  with  or  without  the  connivance 
of  the  American  secret  police  I  will  not  definitely  say.  I 
have  already  had  occasion  to  mention  this  question  in 
connection  with  the  robbing  of  Mr.  Albert.  There  are  in 
the  secret  police  of  all  countries  men  of  doubtful  honor. 
It  might  be  taken  as  certain  that  there  were  such  men  in 
the  pay  of  the  Entente  agents. 

Soon  after  the  settlement  of  the  Sitssex  incident — on 
27th  May — Mr.  Wilson  made  public,  for  the  first  time, 
his  plan  for  the  League  of  Nations.  This  idea  was  to 
constitute  the  foundation-stone  of  his  mediation  and 
fulfil  all  the  hopes  of  the  American  pacifists  for  a  com- 
pulsory court  of  arbitration  in  international  disputes  and 
general  disarmament.  Before  the  war  many  shrewd  men 
in  the  United  States  thought  that  the  arbitration  system 

270 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  271 

initiated  by  the  American  Government  would  exclude  the 
possibility  of  great  wars.  The  outbreak  of  the  World  War 
showed  that  this  was  an  illusion,  and  the  question  arose 
what  precautions  could  be  taken  to  prevent  a  recurrence 
of  the  world  catastrophe.  Mr.  Wilson  was  one  of  the 
first  in  whom  the  idea  matured  that  the  scheme,  hitherto 
regarded  as  Utopian,  of  a  league  binding  all  civilized 
nations  to  a  peaceful  settlement  of  their  disputes  was 
capable  of  being  made  a  practical  proposition  if  backed, 
as  a  means  of  compulsion,  by  a  commercial  boycott,  simi- 
lar to  that  which  the  Entente,  in  contravention  of  inter- 
national law,  employed  with  such  terrible  results  against 
Germany. 

The  most  important  sentences  of  the  speech  which  the 
President  addressed  to  the  American  peace  league  ran  as 
follows : 

"When  the  invitation  for  me  to  be  here  to-night  came 
to  me,  I  was  glad  to  accept, — not  because  it  offered  me 
an  opportunity  to  discuss  the  programme  of  the  League, 
— that  you  will,  I  am  sure,  not  expect  of  me, — but  because 
the  desire  of  the  whole  world  now  turns  eagerly  towards 
the  hope  of  peace,  and  there  is  just  reason  why  we  should 
take  our  part  in  counsel  upon  this  great  theme.  .  .  . 

* '  With  its  causes  and  its  objects  we  are  not  concerned. 
The  obscure  fountains  from  which  its  stupendous  flood 
has  burst  forth  we  are  not  interested  to  search  for  or 
explore.  .  .  . 

"And  the  lesson  which  the  shock  of  being  taken  by  sur- 
prise in  a  matter  so  deeply  vital  to  all  the  nations  of  the 
world  has  made  poignantly  clear  is,  that  the  peace  of  the 
world  must  henceforth  depend  upon  a  new  and  more 
wholesome  diplomacy.  Only  when  the  great  nations  of 
the  world  have  reached  some  sort  of  agreement  as  to 
what  they  hold  to  be  fundamental  to  their  common  in- 


272        MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

terest,  and  as  to  some  feasible  method  of  acting  in  concert 
when  any  nation  or  group  of  nations  seek  to  disturb 
those  fundamental  things,  can  we  feel  that  civilization  is 
at  least  in  a  way  of  justifying  its  existence  and  claiming 
to  be  finally  established.  It  is  clear  that  nations  must 
in  future  be  governed  by  the  same  high  code  of  honor 
that  we  demand  of  individuals.  .  .  . 

"Repeated  utterances  of  the  leading  statesmen  of  most 
of  the  great  nations  now  engaged  in  the  war  have  made 
it  plain  that  their  thought  has  come  to  this,  that  the 
principle  of  the  public  right  must  henceforth  take 
precedence  over  the  individual  interests  of  particular 
nations,  and  that  the  nations  of  the  world  must  in  some 
way  band  themselves  together  to  see  that  right  prevails 
as  against  any  sort  of  selfish  aggression ;  that  henceforth 
alliance  must  not  be  set  up  against  alliance,  understand- 
ing against  understanding,  but  that  there  must  be  a 
common  agreement  for  a  common  object,  and  that  at  the 
heart  of  that  common  object  must  lie  the  inviolable  rights 
of  peoples  and  mankind.  .  .  . 

"This  is  undoubtedly  the  thought  of  America.  This  is 
what  we  ourselves  will  say  when  there  comes  a  proper 
occasion  to  say  it.  ... 

"We  believe  these  fundamental  things:  First,  that 
every  people  has  a  right  to  choose  the  sovereignty  under 
which  they  shall  live.  Like  other  nations,  we  have  our- 
selves no  doubt  once  and  again  offended  that  principle 
when  for  a  little  while  controlled  by  selfish  passion,  as 
our  franker  historians  have  been  honorable  enough  to 
admit ;  but  it  has  become  more  and  more  our  rule  of  life 
and  action.  Second,  that  the  small  States  of  the  world 
have  a  right  to  enjoy  the  same  respect  for  their 
sovereignty  and  for  their  territorial  integrity  that  great 
and  powerful  nations  expect  and  insist  upon.  And,  third, 
that  the  world  has  a  right  to  be  free  from  every  disturb- 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  273 

ance  of  its  peace  that  has  its  origin  in  aggression  and 
disregard  of  the  rights  of  peoples  and  nations. 

"So  sincerely  do  we  believe  in  these  things  that  I  am 
sure  that  I  speak  the  mind  and  wish  of  the  people  of 
America  when  I  say  that  the  United  States  is  willing  to 
become  a  partner  in  any  feasible  association  of  nations 
formed  in  order  to  realize  these  objects  and  make  them 
secure  against  violation.  .  .  . 

"But  I  did  not  come  here,  let  me  repeat,  to  discuss  a 
programme.  I  came  only  to  avow  a  creed  and  give  ex- 
pression to  the  confidence  I  feel  that  the  world  is  even 
now  upon  the  eve  of  a  great  consummation,  when  some 
common  force  will  be  brought  into  existence  which  shall 
safeguard  right  as  the  first  and  most  fundamental  in- 
terests of  all  peoples  and  all  governments,  where  coercion 
shall  be  summoned,  not  to  the  service  of  political  ambi- 
tion or  selfish  hostility,  but  to  the  service  of  a  common 
order,  a  common  justice,  and  a  common  peace.  God  grant 
that  the  dawn  of  that  day  of  frank  dealing  and  of  settled 
peace,  concord,  and  co-operation  may  be  near  at  hand!" 

This  speech  displayed  all  the  characteristics  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  oratory:  brilliant  command  of  the  English 
language,  dazzling  wealth  of  vocabulary  and  nebulous 
sentence  construction  which  made  the  purpose  clear  only 
to  the  initiated.  Nevertheless,  the  vital  points  of  the 
speech  could  not  be  misunderstood.  It  prepared  the 
world  for  American  mediation  by  strong  emphasis  of 
the  League  of  Nations  idea. 

The  political  lull  of  midsummer  brought  an  important 
improvement  in  public  feeling  towards  us.  This  change 
for  the  better  was  reflected  with  special  clearness  in  the 
reception  given  to  the  merchant  submarine  Deutschlandt 
as  I  have  already  described. 


274        MY   THBEE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

At  the  time  of  this  speech  of  Mr.  Wilson's,  I  sent  the 
following  report : 

REPORT  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  28th  May,  1916. 

"The  placation  of  American  public  opinion  is  pro- 
gressing. Hardly  any  mention  is  now  made  in  the  Press 
of  German-American  relations.  Only  two  persons  are 
still  wavering.  The  American  Government  are  delaying 
the  publication  of  my  letter  on  the  subject  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  settlement,  because  they  think  that  it  will  not  satisfy 
public  opinion  here.  It  may  be  assumed  that  its  publica- 
tion will  take  place  at  the  beginning  of  June,  during  the 
Republican  National  Convention,  so  that  it  may  pass  as 
far  as  possible  unnoticed  in  the  general  excitement  about 
domestic  politics.  The  American  Government's  delay  in 
this  matter  shows  clearly  how  great  the  opposition  has 
been.  While  we  thought  to  have  made  important  con- 
cessions, the  American  Government  here  consider  that 
they  have  not  attained  the  objective  prescribed  for  them 
by  public  opinion. 

"Further,  the  Igel  incident  is  not  yet  settled.  On  this 
question  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the 
State  and  Law  Departments.  The  former  confirming  our 
standpoint  that  the  seizure  of  the  papers  was  illegitimate 
and  that  they  must  be  returned.  The  Law  Department, 
on  the  other  hand,  holds  that  Herr  von  Igel  has  been 
guilty  of  a  legal  offence  and  so  has  forfeited  his  diplo- 
matic privileges.  Consequently  I  get  no  further,  and  the 
case  is  continually  deferred.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
State  Department  will  soon  bestir  itself  to  make  a  de- 
cision which  will,  however,  in  any  case,  necessitate  the 
recall  of  Herr  Igel. 

"Mr.  Wilson's  peace  plans  are  becoming  more  and 
more  tangible.  The  only  question  is  whether  he  possesses 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  275 

sufficient  authority  to  force  our  enemies  to  agree  to  nego- 
tiations. Colonel  House  is  convinced  that  Mr.  Wilson 
will  succeed.  The  President  is  considering  the  plan  of 
calling  together  a  conference  at  the  Hague,  in  which  the 
neutrals  will  only  participate  so  far  as  the  *  Freedom  of 
the  Seas'  is  concerned.  If  the  project  materializes, 
Colonel  House  is  sure  to  take  part  in  the  conference,  even 
though  he  may  not  be  the  official  American  representative. 
His  influence,  however,  would  be  sure  to  be  great,  for  no 
one  else  is  so  completely  in  touch  with  Mr.  Wilson's 
views.  The  latter  is  still  of  the  opinion  that  the  United 
States  should  under  no  circumstances  take  part  in  the 
actual  settlement  of  the  peace  conditions.  He  and  his 
alter  ego  are  meanwhile  very  much  afraid  that  our 
enemies  might  remain  obdurate,  since  they  are  under  the 
impression,  or  are  trying  to  spread  the  impression,  that 
the  President,  in  opening  the  peace  negotiations,  is  act- 
ing for  Germany.  Certainly  England  continually  drags 
this  idea  into  the  discussion.  At  one  time  it  is  said  that 
Prince  Billow  is  coming  here  to  submit  the  German  peace 
conditions  to  Mr.  Wilson;  at  another,  that  Germany  is 
on  the  brink  of  starvation  and  must  therefore  sue  for 
peace.  We  ought  as  far  as  possible  to  counteract  this 
propaganda  of  our  enemies.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  will 
not  do  serious  harm,  because  the  peace  vote  in  America 
continues  to  grow  and  Mr.  Wilson  can  count  with  cer- 
tainty on  re-election  if  he  establishes  a  peace  conference. 
We  shall  therefore  daily  gain  ground  here  so  long  as  we 
appear  to  be  ready  to  encourage  the  American  peace 
movement,  while  our  enemies  adopt  an  unfavorable  atti- 
tude. The  American  people  is  now  pacifically  minded. 
It  becomes  clearer  every  day  how  difficult  it  is  to  arouse 
enthusiasm  for  war  preparedness,  etc.  No  one  who  has 
lived  here  for  any  length  of  time  can  help  coming  to  the 
conclusion  that  peaceful  money-making  is  the  Americans' 


276        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

chief  interest  in  life.  Only  when  they  think  that  their 
rights  have  been  seriously  infringed  do  they  lash  them- 
selves into  an  hysterical  war-fever.  Why  should  war 
passion  smoulder  in  the  hearts  of  a  people  whose  boun- 
daries are  so  secure  that  no  enemy  has  ever  been  seen 
inside  them,  nor  in  all  human  probability  ever  will  be?" 

After  the  settlement  of  the  Sussex  incident  the  Im- 
perial Government  naturally  hoped  that  Mr.  Wilson 
would  take  steps  to  justify  our  concessions  with  regard 
to  the  submarine  question.  Accordingly  I  received  the 
following  general  instructions : 

"Berlin,  7th  June,  1916. 
"Order  A.  56. 
"Confidential. 

"More  than  a  month  has  passed  since  our  last  Note  to 
the  United  States  without  President  Wilson  making  up 
his  mind  to  approach  the  English  Government  on  the 
question  of  the  blockade.  True  I  do  not  expect  that  Eng- 
land would  allow  herself  to  be  influenced  by  the  United 
States  to  abandon  her  infringement  of  international  law ; 
nor  do  I  imagine  that  a  rejection  of  the  American  de- 
mands by  England  would  lead  to  a  serious  disturbance  of 
the  relations  between  these  two  countries.  The  existing 
arbitration  treaty,  which  makes  it  possible  in  extreme 
cases  to  delay  the  settlement  of  the  points  of  contention 
indefinitely,  rules  this  out.  But  the  complete  passivity 
of  Mr.  Wilson,  which  could  be  understood  so  long  as  he 
wished  to  avoid  giving  the  impression  that  he  was  acting 
under  German  coercion,  but  which  cannot  continue  to  be 
justified  on  these  grounds,  is  bound  to  re-act  very  un- 
favorably on  public  opinion  here  and  puts  the  Imperial 
Government  in  an  extremely  difficult  position. 


AMEBICAN   MEDIATION  277 

"From  the  information  which  has  reached  you,  Your 
Excellency  will  already  realize  that  our  surrender  to 
America  on  the  submarine  question  has  met  with  ap- 
proval in  wide  and  influential  circles  in  Germany.  If 
President  Wilson  persists  in  his  passive  attitude  towards 
England,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  section  of  German 
public  opinion  whose  attitude  has  so  far  been  favorable 
to  the  Government  will  ally  themselves  with  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  Government  policy,  and  thait  the  whole  of 
public  opinion  in  Germany  will  clamor  for  the  resumption 
of  the  submarine  campaign  on  the  old  lines.  In  that  case, 
the  Imperial  Government  would  be  all  the  less  in  a  posi- 
tion to  resist  this  demand  for  any  length  of  time,  as  all 
the  military  authorities  have  always  been  unanimous  in 
regarding  and  urging  unrestricted  submarine  warfare  as 
the  only  effective  means  to  bring  about  the  defeat  of  Eng- 
land. Moreover,  as  we  have  received  secret  information 
that  the  Entente  have  decided  on  a  drastic  tightening  of 
the  blockade,  and  at  the  same  time  have  agreed  in  future 
to  meet  the  protests  of  the  neutrals,  and  particularly 
America,  with  the  argument  that  only  in  this  way  can  the 
end  of  the  war,  which  is  also  in  the  interests  of  the  neu- 
tral countries,  be  brought  about.  Your  Excellency  will 
therefore  bring  to  the  notice  of  President  Wilson  and 
Mr.  House  the  serious  dangers  which  his  passivity  to- 
wards England  involves. 

"With  regard  to  Mr.  Wilson's  plans  for  mediation, 
they  are  meanwhile  meeting  with  vigorous  opposition  in 
England.  If  they  are  rejected  by  England,  the  result 
cannot  but  be  favorable  to  us,  for  we  are  naturally  scep- 
tical of  mediation  on  the  part  of  a  statesman  so  partial 
to  England,  and  at  the  same  time  so  naive  as  President 
Wilson.  This  necessarily  follows  on  the  consideration 
that  the  President  would  primarily  be  concerned  to  con- 
struct peace  on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo  ante,  and  par- 


ticularly  in  respect  of  Belgium.  Although  there  is  to-day 
little  on  which  to  form  an  estimate  as  to  how  far  we  shall 
be  in  a  position  to  bring  about  a  solution  in  conformity 
with  our  own  interests  to  the  Belgian  question,  which  is 
the  direct  result  of  the  war,  so  much  is  certain,  that  if 
the  war  continues  in  our  favor,  a  peace  on  the  basis  of 
the  absolute  status  quo  ante  would  not  be  acceptable  to 
us.  So,  as  the  President  interprets  his  role  as  the  chosen 
champion  of  all  that,  in  his  opinion,  is  right  and  just,  it 
is  to  be  feared  that  a  refusal  on  our  part  to  make  peace 
on  this  basis  might  induce  him  to  go  over  openly  to  the 
enemy's  camp.  It  is  not,  however,  out  of  the  question 
that  public  opinion  in  England  may  in  time  again  turn  to 
Mr.  Wilson  and  his  desire  for  mediation.  As  soon,  there- 
fore, as  Mr.  Wilson's  mediation  plans  threaten  to  assume 
a  more  concrete  form  and  there  is  evidence  of  an  inclina- 
tion on  the  part  of  England  to  fall  in  with  them,  it  will 
be  Your  Excellency's  duty  to  prevent  President  Wilson 
from  approaching  us  with  a  positive  proposal  of  media- 
tion. The  choice  of  means  for  attaining  this  object  with- 
out endangering  our  relations  with  the  United  States  I 
think  I  may  leave  to  Your  Excellency's  diplomatic  skill, 
as  from  here  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  get  a  clear  insight 
into  the  position  of  affairs  in  America. 

"VoN  JAGOW." 

I  have  already  mentioned  that  Mr.  Wilson  had  for  some 
time  past  subordinated  the  question  of  the  "Freedom  of 
the  Seas,"  i.e.,  in  this  concrete  instance  the  English 
blockade,  to  his  desire  for  mediation.  Regarded  from  his 
point  of  view,  this  new  ordering  of  his  plans  was  based 
on  an  entirely  correct  political  train  of  thought.  The 
President  gave  first  place  to  the  attainable,  with  a  view 
to  taking  up  later  what  was  for  the  time  being  unattain- 
able. In  view  of  the  fact  that  we  could  bring  no  pressure 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  279 

to  bear  to  change  Mr.  Wilson's  point  of  view,  it  only  re- 
mained for  us  to  exploit  his  plans  as  far  as  possible  in 
the  interests  of  German  policy. 

As  my  instructions  on  the  most  important  point — the 
question  of  mediation — did  not  appear  to  me  sufficiently 
clear,  I  asked  in  the  following  report,  dated  from  the 
summer  quarters  of  the  Embassy,  for  a  more  detailed 
explanation : 

REPORT  IN  CIPHER 

"In  reply  to  Order  A.  56, 
"Eye,  13th  July,  1916. 

"The  inactivity  of  Mr.  Wilson,  who  has  only  one 
thought,  re-election,  is  due  in  the  first  place  to  the  fact 
that  no  pressure  is  being  put  upon  him  by  American 
public  opinion  to  take  action  with  regard  to  England.  It 
is  obvious  that  conditions  here  are  not  favorable  to  such 
action.  Those  American  circles  which  are  suffering 
financial  losses  as  a  result  of  the  English  blockade,  have 
no  weight  in  face  of  the  tremendous  stream  of  gold  which 
our  enemies  have  poured  lavishly  over  this  country,  not 
haggling  over  details,  and  conniving  at  'graft.'  For  the 
rest,  Mr.  Wilson's  train  of  thought  with  regard  to  action 
in  respect  of  England  practically  coincides  with  that 
expressed  by  Your  Excellency.  He  does  not  think  at 
present  that  it  is  likely  to  meet  with  any  success,  as  he 
has  no  means  of  bringing  pressure  to  bear.  No  one  would 
take  him  seriously  if  he  threatened  England  with  war. 

"The  position  is  quite  different  with  the  President's 
well-known  anxiety  to  bring  about  peace  in  Europe.  In 
this  matter  he  now  has  the  whole  of  American  public 
opinion  behind  him.  He  also  believes  that,  after  the  ex- 
pected failure  of  their  present  offensives,  our  enemies 
will  be  ready  to  open  peace  negotiations.  If  this  assump- 


280       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

tion  proves  unfounded,  and  our  enemies  reject  an  Ameri- 
can invitation  on  these  lines,  the  main  question  dealt  with 
in  Your  Excellency's  instructions  to  me  will  be  settled. 
Meanwhile,  he  is  sure  to  make  an  attempt  to  negotiate 
peace,  if  only  for  election  purposes.  I  therefore  venture 
to  request  Your  Excellency  to  cable  me  further  brief  in- 
structions as  to  how  I  am  to  interpret  the  words  'more 
concrete  form  of  mediation  plans,'  and  *  positive  proposal 
of  mediation.'  I  am  assuming  that  the  main  part  of  my 
respectful  reports  will  only  reach  Your  Excellency  at  the 
same  time  as  this.  Therefore,  Mr.  Gerard,  when  Your 
Excellency  spoke  with  him  at  the  beginning  of  May,  on 
the  question  of  mediation,  would  not  have  received  de- 
tailed instructions  as  to  the  President's  intentions.  In 
any  case,  he  was  mistaken  as  to  the  attitude  Your  Ex- 
cellency should  adopt  with  regard  to  an  American  peace- 
movement.  On  the  strength  of  a  telegram  received  at 
that  time  from  Mr.  Gerard,  Mr.  Wilson  believed  that  the 
Imperial  Government  was  ready  to  accept  his  mediation, 
and  I  accordingly  contradicted  this  assumption  as  in- 
structed. As  far  as  I  know,  Mr.  Wilson  refuses  definitely 
to  take  any  part  in  the  discussion  of  territorial  questions, 
but  confines  his  interest  to  'disarmament'  and  *  Freedom 
of  the  Seas.'  His  idea  is  that  there  should  be  a  confer- 
ence at  the  Hague,  in  which  the  United  States  and  other 
neutral  Powers  would  only  take  part  in  so  far  as  these 
two  questions  are  concerned.  *  Disarmament'  may  cer- 
tainly be  very  undesirable  for  us,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  'Freedom  of  the  Seas,'  ought,  without  a  doubt,  to 
bring  us  on  the  side  of  the  United  States.  If  it  once 
comes  to  peace  negotiations  between  the  combatants,  I 
regard  it  as  out  of  the  question — even  were  they  to  fail — 
that  the  United  States  would  enter  the  war  against  us. 
American  public  feeling  in  favor  of  peace  is  too  strong 
for  that.  It  required  the  hysterical  excitement  roused  by 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  281 

the  Lusitania  question,  and  the  incidents  connected  witK 
it,  to  produce  a  state  of  mind  among  Americans  which 
at  times  made  war  seem  inevitable.  In  the  absence  of 
similar  incidents,  such  a  state  of  public  feeling  could  not 
be  aroused.  The  admiration  with  which  the  cruise  of 
the  submarine  Deutschlcmd  was  regarded  showed  plainly 
which  way  the  wind  blows  now. 

"I  made  the  above  mentioned  request  because  I  con- 
sider it  out  of  the  question  to  prevent  Mr.  Wilson  from 
taking  action  with  regard  to  peace.  I  am  in  doubt,  how- 
ever, whether  by  a  'positive  proposal  of  mediation '  your 
Excellency  means  such  a  proposal  as  that  made  by  Mr. 
Koosevelt  after  the  Russo-Japanese  War.  On  that  occa- 
sion it  is  well  known  that  the  negotiations  were  carried 
on  under  direct  American  influence.  This,  as  I  have 
already  said,  is  not  what  Mr.  Wilson  wants.  He  only 
wants  to  play  the  part  of  peace-instigator ;  he  would  like 
to  deserve  the  credit  for  having  brought  the  combatants 
to  negotiate  one  with  the  other.  Such  a  success  would, 
in  view  of  the  state  of  feeling  here,  probably  assure  his 
re-election. 

"I  am  therefore  convinced  that  within  the  next  few 
weeks  the  President  will  institute  proceedings  with 
regard  to  peace,  provided  that  the  enemy  offensive  con- 
tinues to  prove  abortive.  Mr.  Wilson  will  then  tell 
England  that  he  has  been  obliged  on  the  grounds  of 
domestic  politics  to  make  a  sharp  protest  against  the 
blockade,  provided  that  peace  negotiations  have  not  been 
opened.  For  me  the  question  now  arises  whether  I  am 
to  try  to  stand  in  the  way  of  these  proceedings.  Of 
course  I  could  exert  strong  influence  on  Colonel  House. 
Wilson,  however,  would  immediately  suspect  that  we 
were  attempting  to  deal  with  his  successor,  and  to  give 
Mr.  Hughes  the  honor  of  instigating  peace  proceedings. 


282        MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMEEICA 

"As  far  as  I  can  judge  from  here,  there  seem  to  be 
three  possibilities: 

"1.  That  the  Wilson  peace  movement  should  fail  in 
consequence  of  the  obduracy  of  our  enemies.  In  that 
case,  if  we  were  to  reopen  the  submarine  campaign  to 
bring  England  to  her  knees,  the  situation  would  at  least 
be  more  favorable  to  us  than  before. 

"2.  That  the  peace  movement  should  fail  through  us, 
and  that  we  should  resume  the  submarine  war. 

"3.  That  the  peace  movement  should  be  accepted  by 
both  sides. 

"In  the  first  case,  I  consider  war  with  the  United 
States  probable;  in  the  second,  certain.  This  is  the 
reason  for  my  request  for  more  definite  instructions  as 
to  whether  I  am  to  impede  a  peace  movement,  or  only  a 
positive  proposal  that  would  bind  us  in  respect  of  terri- 
torial conditions." 

To  this  report  I  received  the  following  reply,  contain- 
ing quite  clear  instructions,  emphatically  to  encourage 
Mr.  Wilson  in  whatever  course  he  might  take: 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Berlin,  18th  August,  1916. 
"In  reply  to  report  A.  350  of  the  13th  inst. 

"Mediation  by  the  President  intended  lead  to  the 
opening  of  peace  negotiations  between  the  combatants 
we  are  gladly  ready  to  accept.  Please  encourage  em- 
phatically the  President's  efforts  in  this  direction. 
Naturally  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  in  accepting  such 
mediation  we  bind  ourselves  to  any  concrete  peace  con- 
ditions. A  general  peace  conference  with  participation 
of  neutrals  only  tolerable  on  the  lines  of  previous 
successful  peace-negotiations  between  combatants  with 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  283 

regard  to  general  and  international  questions  of  Freedom 
of  the  Seas  and  Disarmament. 

*  *  BETHMANN-HOLLWEG.  ' ' 

In  close  connection  with  the  above  exchange  of  letters 
with  Berlin,  stood  an  interchange  of  telegrams  dealing 
with  the  eventual  reopening  of  the  unrestricted  sub- 
marine campaign.  I  received  the  following  telegrams : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"(Strictly  confidential.) 

' 'Berlin,  12th  June,  1916. 

"The  Army  and  Navy  are  again  urging  submarine 
warfare  as  the  only  weapon  against  England,  and  par- 
ticularly against  her  blockade,  to  which  President  Wilson 
has  never,  nor  can  very  well,  take  exception. 

"It  now  remains  to  be  decided: 

"1.  Whether  after  his  nomination  Wilson  would  still 
be  prepared  to  press  matters  as  far  as  a  rupture  and 
war,  even  if  we  spare  human  life  in  the  new  submarine 
war? 

"2.  What  attitude  the  Eepublican  candidate  would 
adopt  on  this  matter? 

"Public  opinion  in  England  is  opposed  to  mediation 
by  Wilson,  which  is  also  not  wanted  on  principle  here, 
because  too  unpopular. 

"Von-  JAGOW." 

I  dispatched  as  quickly  as  possible  to  Berlin  the  fol- 
lowing telegram: 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  19th  June,  1916. 

"Assuming  that  it  is  intended  that  the  resumption  of 
the  submarine  campaign  be  accompanied  by  the  official 


or  clandestine  withdrawal  of  the  concessions  granted  in 
our  Note  of  the  4th  May,  such  a  withdrawal  or  modifica- 
tion of  our  concessions  would  in  my  opinion  lead  to  a 
rupture  and  America's  entry  into  the  war.  By  condon- 
ing such  a  move  Wilson  would  forfeit  all  hope  of  being 
re-elected  and  Hughes,  who  is  already  suspected  of  being 
the  German  candidate,  could  not  afford  to  recommend  a 
surrender.  With  regard  to  mediation  and  blockade  I  am 
in  constant  communication  with  House.  The  former  to 
be  expected  in  course  of  summer,  for  election  reasons; 
probably  Wilson  will  inform  our  enemies  that  he  will 
have  to  resort  to  sharp  measures  if  peace  is  not 
attained." 

From  the  orders  and  telegrams  here  reproduced  I 
gathered  that  the  political  situation  was,  as  far  as  I  was 
concerned,  to  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  race  between  the 
unrestricted  submarine  campaign  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  American  peace  mediation  on  the  other.  There  was 
apparently  no  third  possibility. 

On  the  1st  September  I  saw  Colonel  House  again.  In 
order  that  this  visit  should  not  attract  notice  I  went  to 
stay  with  other  friends  in  New  Hampshire  for  the  cus- 
tomary American  September  holidays  (Labor  Day). 
From  there  I  motored  to  New  London,  where  Colonel 
House  had  been  spending  the  summer.  The  conversation 
brought  out  that  the  President  considered  a  postpone- 
ment of  mediation  unavoidable,  because  the  Entente 
were  now  filled  with  hopes  of  victory  in  consequence  of 
Bumania's  entry  into  the  war.  In  all  my  conversations 
with  Colonel  House  we  both  proceeded  from  the  assump- 
tion that  an  attempt  to  bring  about  American  mediation 
could  only  succeed  provided  that  the  Entente  had  given 
up  hope  of  victory  without  the  entry  into  the  war  of  the 
United  States.  For  this  reason  Colonel  House  repeated 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  285 

his  advice  that  there  should  be  less  public  talk  in  Berlin 
of  an  early  peace  than  had  hitherto  been  the  case,  since 
in  this  way  we  were  betraying  weakness  and  making 
America's  task  more  difficult. 

Colonel  House  also  said  that  the  President  now  in- 
tended to  await  the  further  development  of  the  war,  and, 
if  he  should  be  re-elected,  immediately  to  take  steps  to- 
wards mediation.  Before  the  presidential  election  the 
time  was  too  short  for  any  action,  for  the  Entente 
would  pay  no  heed  to  the  mediation  of  a  problematical 
candidate. 

Looking  back,  I  am  still  convinced  even  to-day  that 
Colonel  House's  estimate  of  the  situation  with  regard  to 
the  President  was  entirely  correct  from  the  American 
point  of  view.  Mr.  Wilson  could  only  afford  to  offer  his 
mediation  provided  that  he  was  sure  of  success.  For  us 
the  position  was  in  my  opinion  different.  For  Germany 
American  mediation  would  have  been  welcome  at  any 
time.  It  would  either  succeed  and  bring  about  an  accept- 
able peace,  or  the  Entente  would  reject  Wilson's  pro- 
posal after  we  had  accepted  it.  In  the  latter  case  we 
should  score  a  diplomatic  success  in  Washington  which 
would  make  it  very  difficult  for  the  American  Govern- 
ment to  enter  the  war.  The  third  possibility,  that  the 
German  Government,  after  all  that  had  passed,  might 
refuse  Mr.  Wilson's  mediation,  I  did  not  even  consider. 

Immediately  after  my  return  from  New  Hampshire  I 
telegraphed  the  following  to  the  Foreign  Office : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER  No'.  100 

"Rye,  6th  September,  1916. 

"Wilson's  mediation  postponed  until  further  notice 
because  for  the  moment  out  of  question,  owing  to  Ru- 
mania's entry  into  war  and  consequent  renewed  prospect 


286        MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

of  victory  for  onr  enemies.  Wilson  thinks  he  cannot 
now  mediate  before  the  election,  because  England  might 
pay  little  attention  to  him  until  after  the  election,  and 
if  he  were  not  elected  would  have  nothing  further  to  do 
with  him.  If,  however,  "Wilson  wins  at  the  polls,  for 
which  the  prospect  is  at  present  favorable,  and  if  the  war 
meanwhile  remains  at  a  standstill,  the  President  will  at 
once  take  steps  towards  mediation.  He  thinks  in  that 
case  to  be  strong  enough  to  compel  a  peace  conference. 
"Wilson  regards  it  as  in  the  interest  of  America  that 
neither  of  the  combatants  should  gain  a  decisive  victory." 

This  telegraphic  report  of  my  conversation  with 
Colonel  House  reached  Berlin  when  they  were  beginning 
to  grow  impatient  of  the  delay  in  the  peace  movement. 
According  to  Karl  Helfferich 's  account  the  question  was 
discussed  at  the  time  between  himself,  the  Imperial 
Chancellor  and  Herr  von  Jagow.  Thereupon,  according 
to  General  Ludendorff's  "War  Memories,"  "the  Chan- 
cellor proposed  to  His  Majesty  that  instructions  should 
be  given  to  Ambassador  Count  Bernstorff  to  induce  the 
President  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and  in  any 
case  before  the  presidential  election,  to  make  a  peace 
offer  to  the  Powers."  Herr  Helfferich  then  goes  on  to 
report  that  the  Chancellor  cabled  to  me  to  question  me 
quite  personally  as  to  my  opinion  of  Wilson  as  a  peace 
mediator.  The  accounts  of  both  these  gentlemen  are 
doubtless  accurate,  but  they  do  not  mention  that  the  in- 
quiry addressed  to  me  did  not,  nor  was  intended  to, 
create  a  new  situation,  but  had  as  its  sole  object  to  obtain 
my  opinion  as  to  the  prospects  of  a  movement  which  had 
long  been  set  on  foot.  In  the  inquiry,  as  Herr  Helfferich 
also  reports,  I  was  informed  that  we  would  evacuate  Bel- 
gium. This  was  of  course  a  necessary  preliminary  to 
Mr.  Wilson's  mediation,  which  otherwise,  in  view  of  the 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  287 

feeling  prevailing  in  America,  would  have  been  entirely 
out  of  the  question. 

The  Chancellor's  inquiry  read  as  follows: 
TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER  No.  74 

"Berlin,  2nd  September,  1916. 
"Confidential. 

"Our  West  Front  stands  firm.  East  Front  naturally 
threatened  somewhat  by  Rumania's  declaration  of  war. 
Rolling  up  of  front  or  collapse  of  Austria,  however,  not 
to  be  feared.  Turkey  and  Bulgaria  to  be  relied  on. 
Greece  uncertain.  Hopes  of  peace  before  winter,  as 
result  of  Russian  or  French  war-weariness,  diminished 
by  this  development  Apparently,  if  no  great  catastrophe 
occurs  in  East,  Wilson's  mediation  possible  and  success- 
ful if  we  guarantee  required  restoration  of  Belgium. 
Otherwise,  unrestricted  submarine  warfare  would  have 
to  be  seriously  considered.  Request  you  give  purely  per- 
sonal opinion  without  inquiry  in  any  quarter. 

'  *  BETHMANN-HOLLWEG.  ' ' 

To  this  inquiry  I  replied  as  follows : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER  No.  101 

"Rye,  8th  September,  1916. 

"In  reply  to  Telegram  No.  74. 

"Your  question  answered  in  substance  by  my  telegram 
No.  100.  I  take  it  then  that  your  Excellency  intends 
yourself  to  invite  Wilson's  mediation.  In  so  far  as  the 
United  States  of  America  concerns  itself  with  territorial 
questions — which  hitherto  I  have  always  categorically 
opposed  —  restoration  of  Belgium  should  constitute 
America's  principal  interest,  since  public  opinion  is 
almost  exclusively  favorable  to  this. 


288        MY   THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

"If  Wilson  is  re-elected,  I  think  there  is  good  prospect 
of  his  mediation  before  the  end  of  the  year. 

"From  this  point  of  view  the  attainment  of  peace 
through  unrestricted  submarine  war  seems  hopeless, 
since  the  United  States  would  inevitably  be  drawn  into 
the  war — no  matter  what  may  be  the  result  of  the  elec- 
tion— and  consequently  the  war  would  be  prolonged." 

I  should  like  particularly  to  draw  the  reader's  atten- 
tion to  this  telegram,  because  it  expresses  definitely  my 
opinion  that  the  submarine  campaign  could  not  bring 
us  peace. 

Soon  afterwards  I  was  again  instructed  by  the  Chan- 
cellor to  hasten  Mr.  Wilson's  peace  movement.  His  tele- 
gram is  here  reproduced: 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Berlin,  26th  September,  1916. 
"For  Your  Excellency's  personal  information. 
"The  enemy's  intention  of  breaking  through  our 
fronts  has  not,  so  far,  succeeded,  and  will  not  succeed, 
any  more  than  his  Salonika  and  Dobrudja  offensives.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  operations  of  the  Central  Powers 
against  Rumania  are  making  encouraging  progress. 
Whether  we  shall  succeed  this  year  in  gaining  a  victory 
there  that  will  bring  the  war  to  an  end  is  still  doubtful ; 
therefore,  for  the  present  we  must  be  prepared  for  a 
further  prolonging  of  the  war.  Meanwhile,  the  Imperial 
navy  is  confident  that  by  the  unrestricted  employment 
of  large  numbers  of  submarines  they  could  in  view  of 
England's  economic  position,  meet  with  a  success  which 
would  in  a  few  months  make  our  principal  enemy,  Eng- 
land, more  disposed  to  entertain  thoughts  of  peace.  It 
is  therefore  essential  that  G.H.Q.  should  include  a  sub- 
marine campaign  among  their  other  measures  to  relieve 
the  situation  on  the  Somme  Front,  by  impeding  the  trans- 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  289 

port  of  munitions,  and  so  making  clear  to  the  Entente  the 
futility  of  their  efforts  in  this  area. 

"The  whole  situation  would  change  if  President  Wil- 
son, following  out  the  plans  he  has  already  indicated, 
were  to  make  an  offer  of  mediation  to  the  Powers.  This 
would,  of  course,  not  have  to  include  any  definite  pro- 
posals of  a  territorial  nature,  as  these  questions  should 
form  part  of  the  agenda  of  the  peace  negotiations.  Such 
a  move,  however,  would  have  to  be  made  soon,  as  other- 
wise we  could  not  continue  to  stand  calmly  aside  and 
watch  England,  realizing  as  she  does  the  many  difficulties 
to  be  reckoned  with,  exert  with  impunity  increasingly 
strong  pressure  on  the  neutrals,  with  a  view  to  improv- 
ing her  military  and  economic  position  at  our  expense, 
and  we  should  have  to  claim  the  renewed  liberty  of  action 
for  which  we  stipulated  in  the  Note  of  the  4th  of  May  of 
this  year.  Should  Mr.  Wilson  insist  on  waiting  until 
immediately  before  or  after  the  election,  he  would  lose 
the  opportunity  for  such  a  step.  Also  the  negotiations 
should  not  at  first  aim  at  the  conclusion  of  an  armistice, 
but  should  be  carried  on  solely  by  the  combatant  parties, 
and  within  a  short  period  directly  bring  about  the  pre- 
liminary peace.  A  further  prolongation  would  be  un- 
favorable to  Germany's  military  situation,  and  would 
result  in  further  preparations  being  made  by  the  Powers 
for  the  continuance  of  the  war  into  next  year,  so  that 
there  would  be  no  further  prospect  of  peace  within  a 
reasonable  time. 

"Your  Excellency  should  discuss  the  position  cau- 
tiously with  Colonel  House,  and  find  out  the  intentions 
of  Mr.  Wilson.  A  peace  movement  on  the  part  of  the 
President  which  bore  the  outward  appearance  of  spon- 
taneity would  be  seriously  considered  by  us,  and  this 
would  also  mean  success  for  Mr.  Wilson's  election 
campaign. 


290        MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

"Gerard  has  applied  for  leave,  as  the  result  of  a 
private  letter  from  Colonel  House,  but  he  has  received 
no  reply  from  the  State  Department. 


*  * 


The  explanation  of  the  final  sentence  of  the  above  tele- 
gram is  as  follows.  I  have  already  mentioned  that  Mr. 
Gerard  was  not  popular  in  Berlin,  owing  to  his  very 
highly-strung  temperament,  his  impetuosity  and  his  want 
of  tact.  His  recall  was  eagerly  desired.  Consequently,  I 
had  received  instructions  to  arrange,  if  possible,  for  the 
replacement  of  Mr.  Gerard,  and  in  any  case  that  the 
Ambassador  should  be  recalled  for  a  time  to  Washington, 
so  that  his  nerves  might  have  a  chance  to  rest.  As  al- 
ways, in  strictly  confidential  matters,  I  referred  this  to 
Colonel  House,  who  told  me  that  in  view  of  the  existing 
political  situation  there  could  be  no  question  of  a  recall 
of  Gerard.  He  would,  however,  arrange  for  the  Am- 
bassador to  be  summoned  at  once  to  Washington  for 
fresh  instructions.  If  once  Mr.  Gerard  learned  that  the 
President  now  had  the  definite  intention  of  mediating 
with  a  view  of  peace,  Colonel  House  thought  he  would 
be  received  in  a  more  friendly  manner  in  Berlin. 

I  answered  the  Chancellor's  last  telegram  as  follows: 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  5th  October,  1916. 

"No.  121. 

"Telegram  No.  89  discussed  according  to  instructions. 

"No  change  here  in  the  situation  reported  in  telegrams 
Nos.  100  and  101. 

"In  view  of  possibility  of  surprises  in  war  and  elec- 
tion, Wilson,  for  reasons  already  stated,  refuses  to  at- 
tempt mediation  until  re-elected.  Result  of  election, 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  291 

which  is  being  fought  exclusively  on  foreign  politics, 
uncertain.  President  showing  surprising  firmness.  If 
unrestricted  submarine  campaign  unavoidable,  advise 
emphatically,  postpone  at  least  until  after  election.  Now, 
immediate  rupture  with  United  States  would  be  certain ; 
after  election  Wilson  'a  mediation  probable  on  the 
one  hand;  on  the  other  hand  at  least  slight  possibility 
of  finding  modus  vivendi  by  negotiation  with  United 
States. " 

.  The  instructions  from  Berlin  gave  me  occasion  for  re- 
peated conversations  with  Colonel  House.  The  Imperial 
Government  were  now  ready  to  accept  Mr.  Wilson's 
League  of  Nations  programme,  which  provided  for  gen- 
eral disarmament,  freedom  of  the  seas,  and  compulsory 
arbitration.  My  reports  to  Berlin  on  this  question  had 
the  result  that  on  9th  November  the  Chancellor  in  a 
speech  publicly  espoused  this  programme,  and  that  I,  at 
my  own  suggestion,  received  permission  to  communicate 
officially  the  Chancellor's  speech  to  the  American  Peace 
League,  which  published  my  communication. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Imperial  Government  desired 
that  the  territorial  questions  should  be  regulated  by  di- 
rect negotiations  between  the  combatant  Powers.  Mr. 
Wilson,  as  Colonel  House  told  me,  was  in  agreement  with 
this.  Mr.  Wilson  had  already  expressed  himself  to  this 
effect  in  the  above  mentioned  speech  of  the  27th  May, 
and  in  general  adopted  the  point  of  view  that  the  United 
States  had  no  interest  in  the  details  of  territorial  adjust- 
ment ;  but  that  it  was  of  equally  fundamental  importance 
for  America  as  for  Europe  that  in  future  wars  should 
be  avoided.  The  President  was  only  willing  to  intervene 
in  so  far  as  he  was  certain  of  having  American  public 
opinion  behind  him.  In  my  conversations  with  Colonel 
House  we  never  spoke  of  the  evacuation  of  any  German 


292        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

territory.  We  always  confined  ourselves  exclusively  to 
a  real  peace  by  negotiation  on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo 
ante.  With  such  a  peace  Germany's  position  in  the  world 
would  have  remained  unimpaired.  The  freedom  of  the 
seas,  a  principal  point  in  the  Wilson  programme,  could 
not  but  be  welcome  to  us.  The  President  and  Colonel 
House  have  been  the  sponsors  of  this  idea  in  America. 
Both  were  indefatigable  in  their  efforts  to  materialize 
this  idea  in  such  a  way  that  war  on  commerce  should  be 
abolished  and  that  all  commerce,  even  in  war-time,  should 
be  declared  free.  As  a  necessary  result  of  this  develop- 
ment of  the  laws  of  naval  warfare  Mr.  Wilson  hoped  to 
bring  about  general  naval  disarmament,  since  navies 
would  lose  their  raison  d'etre  if  they  could  only  be  used 
against  each  other  and  no  longer  against  commerce  and 
for  purposes  of  blockade.  It  is  a  regrettable  fact  that  at 
the  Hague  Conference  we  accepted  the  English  stand- 
point on  the  question  of  war  on  commerce,  and  not  the 
American. 

In  October  I  was  again  instructed  from  Berlin  to  speed 
up  Mr.  Wilson's  peace  movement.  With  regard  to  this 
new  urgency  Herr  von  Jagow,  on  the  14th  April,  1919, 
granted  an  interview  to  the  Berlin  representative  of  the 
New  York  Sun,  the  substance  of  which  was  as  follows : 

"In  the  autumn  of  1916  the  Emperor,  Count  Bernstorff 
and  I  opposed  the  resumption  of  unrestricted  submarine 
warfare,  which  was  urged  with  increasing  vigor  by  our 
military  and  naval  departments,  as  being  the  only  means 
of  bringing  the  war  to  an  early  conclusion.  Week  after 
week  we  watched  for  the  hoped-^or  peace  move  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  which,  however,  did  not  come.  At  last,  in 
October,,  the  Emperor,  upon  whom  increasing  pressure 
was  being  brought  to  bear  to  give  his  consent  to  the  un- 
restricted submarine  campaign,  sent  a  memorandum  to 


AMEEICAN   MEDIATION  293 

the  American  Government,  reminding  them  of  certain 
mediation  promises  which  had  been  made  at  the  time  of 
the  Sussex  crisis. 

"When  this  memorandum,  addressed  to  Mr.  Gerard, 
reached  Berlin  Mr.  Gerard  had  already  left  for  America. 
I,  therefore,  cabled  the  text  to  Washington  and  in- 
structed Count  Bernstorff  to  hand  the  memorandum  to 
Mr.  Gerard  on  his  arrival  in  New  York.  Count  Bern- 
storff, who  had  been  made  fully  aware  that  the  Emperor 
wished  to  avert  the  submarine  campaign  and  a  rupture 
with  the  United  States,  was  also  informed  by  me  that 
the  memorandum  had  been  written  by  the  Emperor  in 
person.  For  reasons  which  there  is  no  need  for  me  to 
mention  here,  Count  Bernstorff  handed  the  memoran- 
dum, not  to  Mr.  Gerard,  but  to  Colonel  House,  who  cer- 
tainly communicated  it  to  the  President." 

The  telegram  in  which  the  Emperor's  memorandum 
was  communicated  to  me  read  as  follows : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Berlin,  9th  October,  1916. 

"His  Majesty  the  Emperor  desires  that  the  following 
memorandum  should  be  handed  to  Ambassador  Gerard 
on  the  latter 's  arrival. 

"Your  Excellency  should  do  this  in  strict  confidence 
and  say  that  the  memoir  is  not  intended  to  convey  a  threat 
of  submarine  warfare.  I  should  only  like  you  to  remind 
the  Ambassador  before  his  interview  with  the  President 
of  the  expectations  we  based  in  the  spring  on  Wilson  and 
to  call  his  attention  to  the  increasing  ruthlessness  with 
which  the  enemy  is  carrying  on  the  war.  I  take  it  for 
granted  that  Gerard  will  treat  my  memoir  as  strictly 
confidential  and  will  not  publish  it. 

"Should  Your  Excellency,  however,  regard  the  deliv- 


294        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

ery  of  the  memorandum  as  indiscreet,  I  request  that  it 
may  be  deferred. 

"For  Your  Excellency's  information  (strictly  confiden- 
tial) : 

"1.  The  memorandum  is  written  personally  by  His 
Majesty. 

"2.  Unrestricted  submarine  warfare  is  for  the  present 
deferred. 

"MEMORANDUM 

"Your  Excellency  hinted  to  His  Majesty  in  your  last 
conversation  at  Charleville  in  April  that  President  Wil- 
son possibly  would  try  towards  the  end  of  summer  to 
offer  his  good  services  to  the  belligerents  for  the  promo- 
tion of  peace.  The  German  Government  has  no  informa- 
tion as  to  whether  the  President  adheres  to  this  idea,  and 
as  to  the  eventual  date  at  which  his  step  would  take  place. 
Meanwhile  the  constellation  of  war  has  taken  such  a 
form,  that  the  German  Government  foresees  the  time  at 
which  it  will  be  forced  to  regain  the  freedom  of  action 
that  it  has  reserved  to  itself  in  the  Note  of  May  4th  last, 
and  thus  the  President's  steps  may  be  jeopardized." 

Mr.  Gerard  arrived  in  New  York  a  few  days  after  I 
had  received  the  Emperor's  memorandum.  He  was  ac- 
companied by  the  American  journalist,  Herbert  Swope, 
a  correspondent  of  The  World,  who  had  spent  a  consid- 
erable time  in  Berlin.  This  gentleman  professed  to  be 
Mr.  Gerard's  confidant,  and  even  from  the  ship  sent  wire- 
less messages  to  his  paper  in  which  he  reported  that  the 
unrestricted  submarine  campaign  was  imminent.  The 
Ambassador  also,  after  landing  in  New  York,  expressed 
himself,  as  I  at  once  learned,  to  the  same  effect,  and 
Mr.  Swope  continued  his  open  Press-campaign  in  this 
direction. 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  295 

Under  these  circumstances  I  considered  it  inopportune 
to  give  Mr.  Gerard  the  Emperor's  memorandum,  as  I  as- 
sumed that  he  would  read  into  it  merely  a  confirmation 
of  his  view,  and  would  discuss  it  in  that  light.  If,  how- 
ever, the  idea  spread  abroad  that  we  were  about  to  begin 
the  unrestricted  submarine  campaign  all  prospect  of  suc- 
cess for  peace  mediation  was  lost.  It  was  indeed  clear 
that  the  Entente  would  not  accept  American  mediation  if 
they  could  hope  for  the  submarine  campaign  and  conse- 
quent declaration  of  war  by  the  United  States.  It  must 
continually  be  repeated  that  mediation  could  only  succeed 
if  the  Entente  had  already  abandoned  all  hope  of  Ameri- 
can assistance.  On  these  considerations  I  handed  the 
memorandum  to  Colonel  House,  of  whose  discretion  I  had 
two  years '  experience.  In  this  way  it  came  into  the  hands 
of  the  equally  unusually  discreet  President,  without  any- 
one else  learning  anything  about  it.  The  memorandum 
at  once  produced  a  great  effect,  as  now  the  American 
authorities  had  no  further  doubt  that  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment would  accept  the  intended  mediation.  This 
could,  however,  not  be  speeded  up  because  Mr.  Wilson 
did  not  want  to  undertake  a  great  political  movement  so 
shortly  before  the  election. 

At  this  time  I  sent  the  following  report  to  the  Chan- 
cellor : 

REPORT  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  17th  October,  1916. 
"For  a  week  there  has  again  been  some  excitement 
here  about  foreign  policy.  This  is  due  to  a  variety  of 
causes.  At  first  the  rumor  was  that  Ambassador  Gerard 
was  bringing  with  him  a  peace  proposal  from  the  German 
Government.  In  spite  of  all  denials  this  rumor  was  be- 
lieved for  a  time,  because  it  was  started  by  one  of  the 
first  bankers  of  New  York.  Unfortunately  Mr.  Gerard 


296        MY   THREE  YEAES   IN  AMERICA 

heard  of  this  canard  while  he  was  still  on  the  ship,  and 
as  he  was  travelling  with  Herbert  Swope  a  denial,  sent 
by  wireless,  appeared  in  The  World,  which  was  worse 
than  the  rumor  itself.  In  this  Swope  reported  that  Mr. 
Gerard  was  coming  over  to  announce  the  approaching 
beginning  of  ruthless  submarine  war.  Just  at  this  mo- 
ment the  U53  appeared  at  Newport,  and  two  days  later 
I  had  an  audience  of  the  President,  which  had  been  ar- 
ranged a  long  time  before,  that  I  might  hand  to  Mr. 
Wilson  the  reply  of  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  and  King 
on  the  question  of  Polish  relief. 

"Colonel  House,  with  whom,  as  is  known,  I  am  in  con- 
stant communication,  expected  that  on  his  landing  Mr. 
Gerard  would  let  fall  some  intentional  or  unintentional 
diplomatic  lapsus  linguce,  and  therefore  went  in  the  early 
morning  to  the  quarantine  station  in  order  to  protect 
Gerard  from  the  reporters.  Mr.  Gerard  received  a  very 
hearty  reception,  which,  however,  had  certainly  been  en- 
gineered for  election  purposes,  because  it  is  to  the  interest 
of  the  Democratic  Administration  to  extol  their  ambas- 
sador and  their  foreign  policy.  Immediately  after  the 
reception  Gerard  breakfasted  with  House,  and  there 
everything  was  denied  that  had  been  actually  said  or 
implied. 

"  As  I  have  known  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gerard  for  many  years 
I  had  a  longish  conversation  with  them  on  the  day  after 
their  arrival.  The  quintessence  of  the  ambassador's  re- 
marks was  that  he  was  completely  neutral,  but  that  Berlin 
expected  more  than  that. 

"Now  everything  has  calmed  down  again  here,  and 
nothing  is  talked  about  except  the  election,  which  will 
be  decided  in  three  weeks '  time.  As  I  have  several  times 
had  the  honor  to  report,  the  result  is  most  uncertain. 
While  four  months  ago  a  Republican  victory  seemed  cer- 
tain, to-day  Wilson's  success  is  very  possible.  This  is 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  297 

explained  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Hughes  has  made  no  per- 
manent impression  as  a  speaker,  whereas  Roosevelt  blew 
the  war  trumpet  in  his  usual  bombastic  fashion.  If 
Hughes  should  be  defeated  he  can  thank  Roosevelt.  The 
average  American  is,  and  remains  a  pacifist,  'Er  segnet 
Friede  und  Friedenszeiten,'  and  can  only  be  drawn  into 
war  by  passionate  popular  excitement." 

With  the  facts  contained  in  the  above  report  the  fol- 
lowing telegram  is  also  concerned,  which  I  despatched 
after  the  visit  to  the  President  mentioned  above : 

TELEGRAM  IN  CIPHER 

"Washington,  llth  October,  1916. 

"Wilson  gave  particular  force  to  his  remarks  by  point* 
ing  out  that  the  leaders  of  the  opposition,  Roosevelt, 
Lodge  and  Co.,  desired  war  with  Germany,  which  he  was 
quite  unable  to  understand.  His  only  desire  was  to  re- 
main neutral,  and  to  help  to  bring  the  "war  to  an  end,  as 
a  decision  by  force  of  arms  seemed  to  him  out  of  the 
question.  He  thought  that  neither  of  the  belligerent 
parties  would  be  able  to  gain  a  decisive  victory.  There- 
fore it  was  better  f  o  make  peace  to-day  than  to-morrow. 
But  all  prospect  of  ending  the  war  would  vanish  if  the 
United  States  were  also  drawn  in. 

"As  Wilson  always  spoke  as  though  he  was  holding 
himself  in  readiness,  in  case  his  services  as  mediator 
were  required,  I  told  him  that  in  my  opinion  there  was 
no  prospect  of  any  advances  being  made  by  the  bellig- 
erent Powers. 

.  "It  was  obvious  that  Wilson  would  have  preferred  to 
be  directly  encouraged  to  make  peace  before  the  election 
because  in  that  case  he  would  have  been  sure  of  being 
re-elected.  If,  however,  he  were  re-elected  without  this, 
he  would  have  to  make  up  his  mind  to  take  the  initiative 


298        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

himself.  Result  of  the  poll  still  very  doubtful.  Wilson 
surprisingly  strong,  as  Hughes  has  little  success  as  a 
speaker  and  Roosevelt  does  more  harm  than  good." 

To  this  I  received  the  following  reply  from  the  Chan- 
cellor : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Berlin,  14th  October,  1916. 

"Demand  for  unrestricted  submarine  campaign  in- 
creasing here  with  prolongation  of  war  and  improbability 
of  decisive  military  blow,  without,  however,  shaking  the 
Government's  attitude. 

"Direct  request  for  Wilson's  mediation  still  impos- 
sible, in  view  of  favor  hitherto  shown  to  Entente,  and 
after  last  speeches  of  Asquith  and  Lloyd  George.  Spon- 
taneous appeal  for  peace,  towards  which  I  again  ask  you 
to  encourage  him,  would  be  gladly  accepted  by  us.  You 
should  point  out  Wilson's  power,  and  consequently  his 
duty,  to  put  a  stop  to  slaughter.  If  he  cannot  make  up 
his  mind  to  act  alone  he  should  get  into  communication 
with  Pope,  King  of  Spain  and  European  neutrals.  Such 
joint  action,  since  it  cannot  be  rejected  by  Entente,  would 
insure  him  re-election  and  historical  fame. 

'  *  BfiTHMANN-HOLLWEG. ' ' 

The  incident  of  the  Emperor's  memorandum  closed 
with  the  following  telegram  sent  by  me : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 
"Washington,  20th  October,  1916. 
"I  thought  it  better  to  give  memorandum  to  Gerard 
for  House,  as  in  this  way  greater  discretion  is  assured. 
Latter  was  incautious  in  his  utterances  to  Press  here. 
House  will  speak  with  Gerard.    Both  gentlemen  see  Wil- 
son shortly,  and  are  accordingly  in  constant  touch. 

"It  is  still  not  to  be  expected  that  Wilson  will  make 
peace  advances  before  the  election.  Nor  that  he  will  get 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  299 

into  communication  with  Pope  or  King  of  Spain  as  hith- 
erto every  suggestion  of  joint  action  has  met  with  im- 
movable opposition,  chiefly  based  on  tradition.  Mean- 
while prospect  of  Wilson's  re-election  becomes  obviously 
greater  every  day.  Should  this  occur  I  believe  that  Wil- 
son will  very  soon  attempt  mediation  and  with  success, 
chiefly  because  the  feeling  against  England  has  greatly 
increased,  which  England  is  seeking  to  hide.  If  peace  is 
not  concluded  serious  Anglo-American  differences  of 
opinion  are  to  be  expected.  Until  now  every  fresh  dis- 
pute with  Germany  with  regard  to  the  submarine  ques- 
tion has  always  been  exploited  by  our  enemies  here  to 
bridge  the  differences  with  England.  Already  the  agita- 
tion in  the  German  Press  for  unrestricted  submarine 
warfare  is  persistently  used  for  this  purpose." 

After  a  hard  struggle  Mr.  Wilson  was  re-elected  Pres- 
ident. The  pacifist  tendency  in  the  United  States  had 
won,  for  the  battle  was  fought  under  the  watchword  that 
Mr.  Wilson  had  preserved  peace  for  the  United  States. 
"He  kept  us  out  of  the  war"  had  been  the  battle-cry  of 
the  Democrats.  The  few  electioneering  speeches  made 
by  the  President  breathed  the  spirit  of  neutrality  and 
love  of  peace.  It  is  particularly  to  be  noticed  that  at  that 
time,  Mr.  Wilson,  in  an  address,  dealt  in  a  thoroughly 
objective  way  with  the  question  of  guilt  for  the  origin  of 
the  war,  which  was  later  to  be  the  determining  factor  in 
his  attitude  towards  us.  The  way  was  now  cleared  for 
the  opening  of  the  peace  movement.  Public  feeling  had 
also  become  more  favorable  to  us,  inasmuch  as  the  Amer- 
ican war  industry  no  longer  attached  so  much  importance 
to  the  prolongation  of  the  war  after  the  victorious  Demo- 
cratic party  had  drawn  up  an  extensive  armament  pro- 
gramme and  so  indicated  to  the  industry  the  prospect  of 
great  State  contracts. 


300        MY  THREE  YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

On  the  subject  of  my  own  attitude  with  regard  to  the 
election,  innumerable  legends  have  been  spread  through 
Germany.  The  few  German- Americans  who  shared  the 
views  of  the  so-called  "German- American  Chamber  of 
Commerce"  have  reproached  me  with  having  brought 
about  Mr.  Wilson's  election  by  influencing  the  German- 
Americans.  Anti-German-American  newspapers  main- 
tained, on  the  other  hand,  that  I  had  used  every  lever  to 
bring  about  the  election  of  the  Republican  candidate,  Mr. 
Hughes,  so  as  to  punish  Mr.  Wilson  for  his  attitude 
towards  the  submarine  campaign.  My  position  was  an 
extraordinarily  difficult  one,  as  I  could  neither  take  part 
in  the  election  nor  give  up  the  relations  which  naturally 
and  in  the  course  of  my  duty  bound  me  to  the  German- 
Americans  and  pacifists.  In  general  I  may  say  that  the 
vast  majority  of  German- Americans  had  absolute  confi- 
dence in  me  throughout.  A  splendid  testimony  of  this 
was  given  at  the  great  German  bazaar  which  was  held  in 
New  York  in  aid  of  the  Red  Cross.  This  undertaking 
made  the  astounding  net  profit  of  800,000  dollars.  At 
the  opening  nearly  30,000  people  were  present,  who  gave 
me  an  indescribably  enthusiastic  ovation  simply  because 
they  believed  that  I  had  prevented  war  between  Germany 
and  the  United  States. 

I  never  for  a  moment  denied  that  I  personally  should 
be  glad  to  see  Mr.  Wilson  re-elected,  as  I  was  convinced 
that  he  had  the  determination  and  the  power  to  bring 
about  peace.  It  was  at  that  time  impossible  for  me  to 
foresee  that  our  Government  would  change  its  attitude 
to  this  question.  All  American  pacifists  belonged  to  the 
Democratic  camp,  all  militarists  belonged  to  the  Repub- 
lican party. 

A  change  in  our  favor  was,  therefore,  not  to  be  ex- 
pected from  the  election  of  Mr.  Hughes.  Apart  from  the 
usual  relations  with  the  pacifists  and  German- Americans 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  301 

already  mentioned,  which  were  in  no  way  altered  during 
the  election,  I  held  myself  aloof  as  my  position  demanded. 
If  it  had  been  possible  to  accuse  me  of  taking  sides,  the 
agents  of  the  Entente  would  not  have  missed  the  oppor- 
tunity of  bringing  me  to  book,  as  this  they  regarded  as 
their  object  in  life.  I  continually  received  letters  from 
agents  provocateurs,  asking  for  my  opinion  on  the  elec- 
tions. Of  course  I  never  replied  to  these.  Neither  were 
the  false  statements  of  anti-German  newspapers  any  more 
successful  which  announced  that  on  the  day  of  the  elec- 
tion I  had  openly  shown  my  support  of  Mr.  Hughes. 

New  York  at  night  after  the  polling  is  one  of  the  sights 
of  America.  All  streets,  squares,  theatres  and  restau- 
rants are  filled  to  overflowing.  The  election  results  are 
displayed  everywhere  by  electric  light  and  cinemato- 
graph. Particularly  when  the  result  is  very  uncertain, 
as  in  1916,  the  crowd  are  tremendously  excited.  At  11 
p.m.  the  election  of  Mr.  Hughes  seemed  certain,  as  the 
Eastern  States  had  voted  for  him  almost  to  a  man,  and  it 
was  said  that  a  Democratic  candidate  can  only  gain  the 
victory  if  he  wins  over  New  York  State.  Next  day  the 
picture  changed,  after  the  results  had  come  gradually 
from  the  West,  where  the  Democratic  party  was  every- 
where triumphant.  The  majority,  however,  was  so  slight 
that  it  was  several  days  before  Mr.  Wilson's  election  was 
secure. 

The  malcontents  among  the  German- Americans  already 
mentioned  maintain  that  if  Mr.  Hughes  had  been  elected, 
Congress  would  have  used  the  four  months  between  the 
election  and  the  4th  March,  during  which  Mr.  Wilson 
was  powerless  and  Mr.  Hughes  had  not  yet  got  the  reins 
into  his  hands,  to  rush  through  the  warning  of  American 
citizens  against  travelling  on  British  passenger-ships.  In 
that  case,  Mr.  Hughes,  on  assuming  office,  would  have 
found  himself  faced  with  a  situation  which  would  have 


302        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

prevented  him  from  entering  the  war,  in  view  of  the  na- 
tional inclination  towards  peace.  Therefore,  the  German- 
Americans  ought  to  have  supported  Hughes.  This  had 
been  clear  to  the  Germans  in  the  East.  They  maintained 
that  Wilson's  re-election  was  due  to  the  German  votes 
in  the  "Western  States  which  had  obeyed  a  more  or  less 
clear  order  from  the  German  Embassy. 

This  line  of  argument  is  yet  another  proof  that  the 
Germans  in  question  had  no  idea  of  the  situation  in 
America.  They  kept  exclusively  to  themselves  in  the 
Deutscher  Verein,  and  scarcely  ever  saw  a  real,  true-bred 
American.  To  begin  with,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the 
Germans  in  the  West  should  obey  the  alleged  order  from 
me  if  the  Germans  in  the  East  did  not  do  so.  But  the 
important  thing  is  that  Wilson  had  firmly  made  up  his 
mind,  in  case  Mr.  Hughes  was  elected,  to  appoint  him 
Secretary  of  State  immediately  and,  after  Hughes  had 
informed  himself  on  the  political  position  in  this  office, 
to  hand  over  the  presidency  and  himself  retire.  Mr. 
Wilson  considered  it  impossible  to  leave  the  country 
without  firm  leadership  at  such  a  dangerous  moment. 

Immediately  after  the  official  announcement  of  his  re- 
election, Mr.  Wilson  wrote  a  Peace-Note,  but  unfortu- 
nately kept  it  in  his  desk,  because,  unhappily,  just  at  that 
time  a  new  anti-German  wave  swept  over  the  country  on 
account  of  the  Belgian  deportations.  Mr.  Wilson  was  at 
that  time  in  the  habit  of  typing  the  drafts  of  his  Notes  and 
speeches  himself,  and  only  submitting  them  to  his  ad- 
visers on  points  of  law  or  other  technicalities.  Whether 
he  still  works  in  this  way  I  do  not  know.  If  the  un- 
happy measure  of  the  Belgian  deportations  had  not  been 
adopted,  and  particularly  just  as  we  had  informed  the 
President  that  we  did  not  want  to  annex  Belgium,  the 
history  of  the  world  would  probably  have  taken  a  differ- 
ent course.  The  American  mediation  would  have  antici- 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  303 

pated  our  peace  offer  and,  therefore,  would  probably  have 
succeeded,  because  we  could  not  then  have  reopened  the 
unrestricted  submarine  campaign  without  letting  the 
mediation  run  its  course. 

In  November  several  submarine  incidents  occurred  in 
which  there  was  a  doubt  as  to  whether  the  rules  of  cruiser 
warfare  had  been  followed.  The  ships  Marina  and  Ara- 
bia came  under  particular  consideration.  I  will  not  go 
into  these  cases  as  they  had  no  political  importance. 
President  "Wilson  caused  the  investigations  to  be  carried 
on  in  a  dilatory  fashion  because  he  did  not  want  to  see 
his  peace  move  disturbed  by  controversies. 

Of  greater  importance  was  the  wish  that  was  again 
cropping  up  in  Berlin  to  open  the  so-called  "  intensified 
submarine  campaign."  I  learned  this  in  the  following 
from  Secretary  of  State  von  Jagow: 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  112. 

"Berlin,  8th  November,  1916. 

"Navy  wishes  at  least  torpedo  armed  enemy  cargo- 
vessels  without  warning.  Does  Your  Excellency  consider 
this  dangerous,  apart  from  probable  mistakes,  particu- 
larly in  view  of  fact  that  now  many  Americans  are  lured 
to  travel  on  such  steamers! 

JAGOW." 


As  the  "intensified  submarine  campaign"  would  have 
destroyed  all  prospect  of  American  intervention,  I  ad- 
vised strongly  against  it  in  the  two  following  telegrams  : 

(1)  CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  152 

"Washington,  17th  November,  1916. 
"It  is  urgently  desirable  not  to  reopen  disputes  about 
armed  merchantmen,  especially  in  view  of  Wilson  's  peace 
plan." 


304       MY   THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

(2)  CIPHER  TELEGRAM 
"Washington,  20th  November,  1916. 
"In  reply  to  telegram  No.  112  which  was  delayed. 
"Pursuant  to  Telegram  No.  152. 
"Urge  no  change  in  submarine  war,  until  decided 
whether  Wilson  will  open  mediation.    I  consider  this 
imminent.  " 

At  the  same  time  I  received  the  first  news  of  the  in- 
tended peace  offer  of  the  German  Government.  To  begin 
with,  the  following  telegram  arrived  from  Secretary  of 
State  von  Jagow: 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Berlin,  16th  November,  1916. 

"Desirable  to  know  whether  President  willing  to  take 
steps  towards  mediation,  and  if  so,  which  and  when? 
Question  important  for  decision  of  possible  steps  in  same 
direction  elsewhere. 
"How  does  Mexican  question  stand! 

JAGOW." 


Then  followed  a  further  telegram  which  read  as  fol- 
lows: 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Berlin,  22nd  November,  1916. 

'  *  Strictly  confidential. 

"For  Your  Excellency's  strictly  personal  information. 
So  far  as  favorable  military  position  permits  we  intend, 
in  conjunction  with  our  Allies,  immediately  to  announce 
our  readiness  to  enter  into  peace  negotiations. 

"  VON  JAGOW.  " 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  305 

To  the  first  of  these  two  telegrams  I  sent  the  following 
reply: 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 
"Washington,  21st  November,  1916. 

"Wilson  spontaneously  commissioned  House  to  tell  me 
in  strict  confidence  that  he  is  anxious  to  take  steps 
towards  mediation  as  soon  as  possible,  probably  between 
now  and  the  New  Year.  He  makes  it  a  condition,  how- 
ever, that  until  then,  mediation  should  be  spoken  and 
written  of  as  little  as  possible,  and  further,  that  we  should 
conduct  the  submarine  war  strictly  according  to  our 
promises  and  not  allow  any  fresh  controversies  to  arise. 

"Wilson's  reasons  for  the  above  conditions  are  as  fol- 
lows :  He  believes  that  he  can  only  resort  to  mediation 
provided  that  public  opinion  over  here  remains  as  favor- 
able to  us  as  it  has  been  during  the  last  few  months.  On 
this  account  he  deplores  the  so-called  Belgian  deporta- 
tions. Any  new  submarine  controversy  would  again  af- 
fect public  feeling  adversely  for  us,  whereas  if  this  ques- 
tion can  be  eliminated  the  tension  with  regard  to  England 
will  increase.  The  British  reply  on  the  subject  of  the 
black  lists  and  the  English  Press  utterances  on  Wilson's 
election  have  created  a  bad  impression  in  Government 
circles  over  here.  The  submarine  question,  however,  will 
always  divert  this  resentment  against  us  again. 

"Wilson  still  hesitates  to  intervene  because  the  State 
Department  expects  a  refusal  on  the  part  of  our  enemies, 
while  House  urges  it  strongly  and  is  very  hopeful.  I 
have,  according  to  instructions,  encouraged  him  as  much 
as  possible,  by  telling  him,  that  in  my  opinion,  our  ene- 
mies would  be  quite  unable  to  refuse  to  enter  into  negotia- 
tions, and  that  is  all  that  Wilson  has  in  view.  House 
seemed  very  much  impressed  when  I  reminded  him  how, 
throughout  the  whole  war,  the  English  Government  had 


306        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

tried  by  lying  and  diplomatic  trickery  to  bring  public 
opinion  on  to  their  side.  This  house  of  cards,  built  on 
lies  and  deception,  would  immediately  collapse  if  our  ene- 
mies were  now  to  refuse  negotiations  and  thus  would 
have  to  admit  openly  their  desire  for  conquest.  I  am 
rather  afraid  that  England  may  make  a  pretense  of  en- 
tering into  negotiations  and  then  try  to  put  us  in  the 
wrong. 

"I  chose  this  line  of  argument  because  Wilson  fears 
above  all  things  the  humiliation  of  a  refusal.  If  it  does 
come  to  negotiations,  even  unsuccessful,  Wilson  will  have 
scored  a  great  success.  Whether  the  negotiations  will 
lead  to  a  definite  result  I  cannot  judge  from  here.  In 
any  case,  if  it  should  come  to  negotiations,  strong  press- 
ure will  be  exerted  by  the  Government  over  here  in  the 
direction  of  peace. 

"The  Mexican  question  is  still  in  a  state  of  stagnation 
as  a  result  of  diplomatic  negotiations.  This  affair  inter- 
ests practically  no  one  any  more  and  proved  to  have  no 
influence  on  the  election. 

"If  Your  Excellency  still  desires  Wilson  to  intervene 
it  is  necessary,  in  view  of  the  above,  to  get  rid  as  soon  as 
possible  of  the  Marina  and  Arabia  incidents  without  fur- 
ther controversy  and  not  to  allow  any  fresh  controversies 
to  arise.  I  think  that,  with  the  help  of  House,  I  can  bury 
these  two  incidents  without  attracting  much  attention,  as 
this  is  the  wish  of  Wilson  himself.  As  House  said,  the 
President  takes  a  tragic  view  of  these  incidents,  because, 
after  the  Sussex  Note,  he  could  not  possibly  write  an- 
other Note,  and  therefore,  there  is  nothing  left  but  to 
break  off  diplomatic  negotiations,  should  it  be  impossible 
to  dispose  of  the  matter  privately  and  confidentially  with 
me. 

"Next  week  Gerard  will  be  in  Washington  for  a  day  or 
two :  he  will  lunch  with  me  and  dine  with  Lansing.  House 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  307 

keeps  him  in  strict  control.  In  case  Gerard 's  return  to 
Berlin  is  not  desired,  please  send  me  instructions. 
Otherwise  he  should  be  there  again  at  the  end  of  the 
year." 

To  this  telegram,  which  announced  very  definitely  the 
American  mediation,  I  received  from  the  Foreign  Office 
the  following  reply: 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  121 

"  Berlin,  26th  November,  1916. 

"Replacement,  or  at  least  further  retention,  of  Gerard 
in  America  desired  in  Berlin,  provided  that  it  is  possible 
without  wounding  his  vanity  and  sensitiveness  to  our  dis- 
advantage, that  it  is  certain  that  this  hint  from  our  side 
will  not  become  known  in  America  and  that  a  suitable 
successor  is  available. 

"We  should  prefer  Wilson's  peace  move  to  the  step  on 
our  part  mentioned  in  our  telegram  No.  116  of  the  22nd 
November.  For  this  reason  it  is  eminently  desirable  that 
Wilson  should  make  up  his  mind  for  immediate  action 
if  possible  at  the  opening  of  congress  or  immediately 
afterwards.  If  it  is  put  off  until  the  New  Year  or  later, 
the  lull  in  military  operations  during  the  winter  cam- 
paign would  moderate  the  desire  of  public  opinion  for 
peace,  and  on  the  other  hand  would  make  preparations 
for  the  spring  offensive  necessary  which  would  probably 
strengthen  the  military  opposition  of  a  peace  movement. 
Please  place  this  point  of  view  cautiously  and  without 
empressement  before  House  as  your  personal  opinion 
and  keep  me  closely  instructed  by  telegram  as  to  the 
position. 

"  ZIMMERMAN**.  " 


308        MY   THEEE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 
To  this  telegram  I  sent  the  two  following  replies : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  164 
REPLY  TO  TELEGRAM  No.  121 

"Washington,  1st  December,  1916. 

"To-morrow  I  shall  see  House  in  New  York  and  will 
try  to  arrange  that  Gerard,  who  is  to  sail  on  5th  Decem- 
ber, is  kept  back. 

"Lansing  expressed  himself  very  strongly  to  me  on 
the  subject  of  the  American  protest  with  regard  to  the 
Belgian  deportations.  These  have  endangered  the  whole 
Belgian  relief  movement;  in  addition,  feeling  here  has 
been  poisoned  against  us,  and  that  just  at  a  moment  when 
it  looked  as  though  peace  negotiations  might  be  begun. 
Lansing  expressed  the  view  that,  if  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment could  find  a  way  of  yielding  to  the  protests  of 
the  neutrals,  this  would  make  a  strong  impression  in  our 
favor  and  that  it  would  probably  be  possible  immediately 
afterwards  to  propose  the  opening  of  peace  negotiations. 
Hitherto,  unfortunately,  something  has  always  inter- 
vened. 

"The  Federal  Reserve  Board's  warning  to  the  banks 
against  unsecured  promissory  notes  of  foreign  States  is 
the  first  sign  that  the  Government  here  wishes  to  put 
pressure  on  our  enemies. 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 
"Washington,  4th  December,  1916. 
"Pursuant  to  Telegram  No.  164  of  the  1st  inst. 
"House  told  me  in  strict  confidence  question  of  Mr. 
Gerard's  return  has  been  thoroughly  discussed  by  him 
with  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Lansing.    Mr.  Gerard's  unpop- 
ularity in  Berlin  and  his  unfriendly  manner  were  well 
known  here.    However,  no  satisfactory  successor  was 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  309 

available,  and  Mr  Gerard  is  at  least  straightforward  and 
does  exactly  what  he  is  told.  He  has  received  very  de- 
tailed instructions  here,  and  is  even  quite  enthusiastic 
over  the  idea  of  assisting  in  bringing  about  peace.  In 
addition,  Mr.  Gerard  was  so  pleased  at  the  appointment 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  that  he  is  sure  to  adopt  a  more 
friendly  attitude  in  future. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Gerard  has  everywhere 
described  the  changes  in  the  personnel  at  the  Foreign 
Office  as  extraordinarily  favorable  for  German- American 
relations,  and  laid  particular  stress  on  his  personal 
friendship  with  the  Secretary  of  State. 

"Everything  is  prepared  for  a  peace  move,  but  with 
Mr.  Wilson  still  hesitating,  it  is  still  doubtful  when  he 
will  take  action.  All  the  authorities  here  have  now  been 
won  over  to  favor  such  a  step.  This  may  then  come  at 
any  time,  especially  if  it  is  possible  for  us  to  adopt  a 
conciliatory  attitude  on  the  Belgian  question.  Mr.  Wilson 
believes  that  he  is  so  hated  in  England  that  he  won't  be 
listened  to.  This  train  of  thought  largely  explains  his 
eagerness  in  the  Belgian  question.  In  any  case,  so  much 
is  certain,  that  House  is  continually  urging  Mr.  Wilson 
to  take  action ;  moreover,  peace  propaganda  here  is  stead- 
ily increasing,  notwithstanding  that  it  is  for  the  moment 
very  seriously  hampered  by  the  Belgian  question.  If  Mr. 
Wilson — as  is  to  be  expected — finds  a  strong  feeling  for 
peace  in  Congress,  he  should  at  last  make  up  his  mind." 

After  a  stay  of  about  two  months  in  America,  Mr. 
Gerard,  furnished  with  fresh  instructions,  left  for  Berlin 
on  the  5th  December.  When  later  the  Ambassador,  at 
the  much  discussed  Adlon  dinner,  declared  that  the  re- 
lations between  the  United  States  and  Germany  had 
never  been  so  good  as  at  that  moment  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  this  speech  was  the  keynote  of  his  instruc- 


310        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

tions.  If  on  the  other  hand  Herr  Helfferich  said  that  the 
exuberance  of  the  Ambassador  astonished  him,  this  is 
explained  by  the  fact  that  Berlin  never  believed  in  Mr. 
Wilson's  intention  to  bring  about  peace.  Why  such  in- 
credulity should  persist  notwithstanding  that  Colonel 
House  had  twice  travelled  to  Berlin  for  this  very  pur- 
pose, and  that  the  President's  peace  policy  had  been  the 
burden  of  all  my  reports,  I  shall  never  be  able  to  under- 
stand, while,  on  the  other  hand,  I  can  quite  understand 
that  Mr.  Wilson's  passivity  with  regard  to  the  English 
breaches  of  international  law  had  engendered  strong  dis- 
trust of  him  in  Germany. 

For  the  rest,  Mr.  Gerard  seemed  to  be  imperfectly  in- 
formed about  the  situation  in  Berlin.  He  was  certainly 
right  in  his  prediction  of  the  unrestricted  submarine 
campaign,  but  in  this  case  the  wish  was  father  to  the 
thought.  It  accorded  with  Mr.  Gerard's  anti-German 
feeling,  to  which  he  gave  expression  later  in  his  gossipy 
literature  and  film  production,  that  he  should  welcome 
the  submarine  campaign,  and  with  it  the  rupture  with 
the  United  States,  as  well  as  our  defeat.  But  after  all, 
the  Ambassador  proved  at  the  Adlon  dinner  that  he 
could  "sing  another  tune." 

When  Mr.  Gerard  lunched  with  me  in  Washington,  I 
had  just  learned  by  cable  from  Berlin  that  Herr  von 
Jagow  had  resigned  and  had  been  replaced  by  Herr  Zim- 
mermann.  On  hearing  this  news,  the  Ambassador  said 
that  now  there  would  be  no  rupture  between  Germany 
and  the  United  States,  for  Herr  Zimmermann  was  his 
personal  friend  and  was  opposed  to  war,  while  Herr  von 
Jagow,  as  an  aristocrat,  did  not  love  the  Americans,  and 
looked  down  on  bourgeois  Gerard.  A  grosser  misreading 
of  the  actual  situation  in  Berlin  can  scarcely  be  conceived, 
as  the  unrestricted  submarine  campaign  was  only  made 
possible  by  the  resignation  of  Herr  von  Jagow,  who  was 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  311 

the  chief  opponent  in  Berlin  of  the  submarine  campaign, 
and  the  pillar  on  which  the  idea  of  American  intervention 
rested.  As  long  as  Herr  von  Jagow  remained  Secretary 
of  State,  a  breach  with  the  United  States  was  regarded 
as  impossible.  One  of  his  last  official  acts  was  to  write 
a  private  letter  to  me  on  the  20th  November,  1916,  con- 
cluding with  the  following  sentence : 

"As  you  have  seen  from  your  instructions,  we  are 
thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the  peace  tendencies  of 
President  Wilson.  His  activity  in  this  direction  is  to  be 
strongly  encouraged.  Naturally  his  mediation  tendencies 
must  not  extend  to  concrete  proposals  (because  these 
would  be  unfavorable  to  us.) " 

We  now  come  to  the  moment  in  this  account  when  the 
peace  offer  of  the  Imperial  Government  got  involved  with 
Mr.  Wilson's  plans  for  mediation.  It  is  not  my  intention 
to  go  closely  into  the  events  that  occurred  in  Berlin  or 
the  considerations  that  took  effect  there,  as  I  only  know 
them  through  their  reaction  on  the  instructions  sent  to 
me.  I  will  only  mention  briefly,  that,  according  to  the 
statement  of  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg  before  the 
Commission  of  the  National  Assembly,  the  peace  offer  of 
the  Imperial  Government  was  made  with  a  view  to  in- 
fluencing the  pacifist  minorities  in  the  Entente  countries, 
and  working,  through  the  people,  on  the  Governments. 
Beyond  this  there  was  no  intention  of  cutting  out  Mr. 
Wilson's  peace  move,  but  the  Imperial  Government 
wanted  to  have  "two  irons  in  the  fire."  Finally,  all  the 
utterances  of  the  Imperial  Government,  which  do  not 
seem  to  tally  with  these  two  principles  of  their  policy,  are 
to  be  regarded  as  based  on  purely  tactical  motives.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  decisive  turn  in  our  policy  did  not  occur 
until  the  9th  January,  1917,  when  the  decision  to  resort 


312       MY  THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

to  the  unrestricted  submarine  war  was  taken.   Until  then 
the  policy  followed  was  that  of  * '  two  irons  in  the  fire. ' ' 

This  is  the  way  in  which  I  read  the  situation  in  Wash- 
ington at  the  time.  If  I  had  been  convinced  that  the 
resignation  of  Herr  von  Jagow  and  the  German  peace 
offer  meant  a  definite  departure  from  the  policy  which 
we  had  hitherto  followed  with  regard  to  Mr.  Wilson's 
peace  step,  I  should  have  immediately  sent  in  my  resigna- 
tion, as  I  was  completely  identified  with  this  policy. 
However,  I  shall  return  to  this  side  of  the  question  later. 

The  following  telegram  from  the  Foreign  Office  gave 
me  the  official  information  of  our  peace  offer : 

H 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  128 

' '  Berlin,  9th  December,  1916. 
"Confidential,  for  your  personal  information. 

"We  have  decided  to  make  use  of  the  favorable  posi- 
tion created  by  the  fall  of  Bukarest  in  order,  according 
to  telegram  number  116  of  the  21st  November,  to  make  a 
peace  offer  in  conjunction  with  our  Allies,  probably  on 
Thursday,  the  12th  December.  We  do  not  at  the  present 
moment  run  any  risk  of  damaging  our  prestige  or  show- 
ing signs  of  weakness.  Should  the  enemy  reject  the  offer 
the  odium  of  continuing  the  war  will  fall  upon  them. 
For  reasons  stated  in  telegram  number  121  we  could  not 
wait  any  longer  for  President  Wilson  to  make  up  his 
mind  to  take  action. 

"The  American  Embassy  here  will  at  the  given 
moment  receive  a  Note  in  which  the  American  Govern- 
ment will  be  requested  to  communicate  our  peace  offer  to 
those  of  our  enemies  with  whom  they  represent  our  in- 
terests. Our  other  enemies  will  be  informed  through  the 
medium  of  Switzerland  and  Spain  respectively.  Ameri- 
can reprsentative  in  conversation  with  Chancellor  on  5th 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  313 

December  expressed  himself,  in  confidence,  on  the  Presi- 
dent's mission,  among  other  things,  as  follows:  'What 
the  President  now  most  earnestly  desires  is  practical  co- 
operation on  the  part  of  German  authorities  in  bringing 
about  a  favorable  opportunity  for  soon  and  affirmative 
action  by  the  President  looking  to  an  early  restoration  of 
peace.'  Chancellor  replied  to  American  representative, 
he  was  'extremely  gratified  to  see  from  the  President's 
message  that  in  the  given  moment  he  could  count  upon 
the  sincere  and  practical  so-operation  of  the  President  in 
the  restoration  of  peace,  as  much  as  the  President  could 
count  upon  the  practical  20-  operation  of  German  authori- 
ties.' We  think  we  may  assume  that  our  action  meets 
the  wishes  of  the  President. 

"Please  interpret  it  in  any  case  in  this  sense  to  the 
President  and  House. 

STUMM." 


To  this  telegram  I  replied  as  follows  : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 
"Washington,  13th  December,  1916. 

"In  reply  to  Telegram  No.  128. 

"Have  carried  out  instructions  with  House,  who  is  at 
present  staying  at  the  White  House.  I  have  not  yet  re- 
ceived answer  from  Wilson,  but  it  is  generally  believed 
here  that  he  will  strongly  support  peace  proposals. 

"Mr.  Gerard,  in  a  speech  at  a  farewell  dinner  given  to 
him  in  New  York,  declared  that  Germany  had  won,  and 
could  not  be  robbed  of  her  victory.  Although  not  pub- 
lished, this  speech  attracted  attention,  especially  as  Mr. 
Gerard  emphasized  the  fact  that  he  had  reported  to  Mr. 
Wilson  in  this  sense." 

Before  the  Commission  of  the  National  Assembly  I 


314       MY   THEEE  YEARS  IN    AMERICA 

was  asked  whether  I  had  made  an  attempt  to  stand  in 
the  way  of  our  peace  offer,  lest  it  should  interfere  with 
Mr.  Wilson's  action.  I  took  no  such  steps,  because  I 
thought  that  I  was  faced  with  a  firm  resolve  of  the  Im- 
perial Government,  and  because  I  did  not  think  that  our 
peace  offer  would  substantially  compromise  Mr.  Wilson 's 
action. 

It  was  also  stated  before  the  commission  that  I  might 
have  helped  my  policy  to  prevail  in  Berlin  if  I  had  in- 
sisted on  it  more  strongly.  With  regard  to  this,  I  must 
say  at  once,  that  I  did  not  consider  stronger  influence  on 
my  side  really  called  for,  as  my  instructions  had  always 
categorically  laid  down  that  I  was  to  encourage  Mr. 
Wilson  to  take  peace  action.  I  had  also  been  informed 
that  the  Imperial  Government  would  prefer  such  action 
to  a  peace  offer  from  our  side,  and  that  the  correct 
moment  for  the  latter  would  have  to  depend  on  the  mili- 
tary situation.  I  was,  therefore,  until  the  arrival  of  the 
Berlin  telegram,  number  128,  not  clear  as  to  which  of  the 
actions  would  come  first,  especially  as,  according  to  my 
instructions,  I  was  to  keep  our  peace  offer  secret  and 
could  not  discuss  it  with  Colonel  House. 

Under  ordinary  circumstances,  I  should  have  travelled 
to  Berlin  several  times  during  the  war  to  confer  with  the 
authorities.  Unfortunately,  however,  that  was  impos- 
sible, as  the  English  would  never  have  allowed  me  to 
travel  to  and  fro.  If  I  had  had  the  ways  and  means 
to  enlighten  German  public  opinion  on  the  situation  in 
America,  it  would  certainly  have  done  a  lot  of  good.  Ac- 
cording to  the  evidence  given  before  the  Commission  of 
the  National  Assembly,  the  chief  reason  for  our  rejection 
of  mediation  was  distrust  of  Mr.  Wilson.  Nevertheless, 
I  still  believe  that  ignorance  and  undervaluation  of 
America  was  a  stronger  influence.  At  least  I  cannot 
conceive  that  all  the  authorities  concerned  would  have 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  315 

voted  for  unrestricted  submarine  war  if  they  had  been 
firmly  convinced  that  the  United  States  would  come  into 
the  war  with  all  her  military  and  economic  power.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  I  tried  at  least  to  do  what  I  could  and 
I  made  an  attempt  to  send  Herr  Albert,  who  was  com- 
pletely in  accord  with  me,  to  Berlin  on  the  submarine 
Deutschland.  The  captain  of  the  Deutschland,  however, 
had  scruples  against  carrying  passengers,  and  Herr 
Albert 's  voyage  had  therefore  to  be  given  up.  After  my 
experience  of  the  journeys  of  Herren  Meyer  Gerhardt 
and  Dernburg,  I  certainly  do  not  think  that  Herr  Albert 
would  have  done  very  much  in  Berlin.  Even  I  could 
hardly  have  hindered  the  opening  of  the  unrestricted 
submarine  campaign  where  Herr  von  Jagow,  Herr  von 
Kiihlmann  and  others  had  failed,  and  after  all,  that  was 
the  main  point. 

Mr.  Wilson's  intention  of  bringing  about  peace  had 
been  reported  to  me  so  definitely  and  so  often  that  I  took 
it  for  granted  that  the  President  would  carry  through 
his  plan  in  spite  of  our  peace  offer.  As  I  had  received 
no  instructions  to  the  contrary,  I  held  to  my  previous 
interpretation  of  the  situation,  and  assumed  that,  al- 
though it  was  true  that  we  had  ourselves  made  a  peace 
offer  because  Wilson's  action  was  so  long  in  coming,  we 
should  nevertheless  still  be  glad  to  avail  ourselves  of  the 
President's  help.  In  my  opinion,  this  was  the  only  in- 
terpretation that  could  be  put  on  the  Foreign  Office  tele- 
gram number  128,  given  above.  The  President  himself, 
as  Colonel  House  told  me,  was  very  disappointed  when 
he  received  the  news  of  our  peace  offer.  Colonel  House 
told  me  that  he  would  naturally  have  liked  to  take  the 
first  step  himself.  Apart  from  this,  he  had  always 
warned  us  against  mentioning  peace,  because  this  would 
be  interpreted  by  the  Entente  as  weakness.  He  there- 
fore regarded  our  peace  offer  as  an  obstacle  to  action  on 


316        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

his  part,  as  it  was  bound  to  diminish  the  enemy's  readi- 
ness to  enter  into  negotiations.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
step  of  the  Imperial  Government  exerted  a  favorable 
influence  on  American  public  opinion,  and  this  influence 
would  have  been  even  more  favorable  if  the  offer  had 
been  made  less  in  the  tone  of  a  victor.  The  attitude  of 
American  public  opinion,  and  the  fear  lest  peace  negotia- 
tions might  be  opened  without  his  co-operation,  must 
have  been  the  chief  reasons  that  influenced  Mr.  Wilson 
publicly  to  support  our  peace  offer.  In  connection  with 
this  I  sent  the  following  information  to  Berlin : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 
"Washington,  16th  December,  1916. 

"Lansing  tells  me  the  following  statement,  which  I 
could  not  send  by  wireless  to-day,  comes  from  Wilson 
personally. 

"President  Wilson  has  decided  that  the  Notes  of  the 
Central  Powers,  proposing  a  discussion  of  peace  to  the 
Entente  Allies,  will  be  sent  forward  by  the  American 
Government  acting  as  intermediary  without  any  accom- 
panying offer  of  his  own.  He  has  not  determined  whether 
any  action  on  behalf  of  peace  will  be  taken  later  by  the 
United  States  on  its  own  account,  but  is  holding  himself 
in  readiness  to  serve  in  any  possible  way  towards  bring- 
ing the  warring  nations  together." 

"From  Lansing's  remarks  I  gather  that  he  is  convinced 
that  our  enemies  will  agree  to  a  conference  and  that  then 
the  American  Government  will  have  an  opportunity  to 
speak  in  favor  of  peace.  As  the  Press  here  is  also  in 
general  of  the  opinion  that  our  enemies  cannot  refuse  a 
conference  without  turning  public  opinion  against  them- 
selves, I  have  grounds  for  assuming  that  the  American 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  317 

Embassy  in  London,  in  spite  of  the  official  statement 
mentioned  above,  will  assert  this  view. 

As  I  expected,  the  President  did  not  allow  himself  to 
be  turned  from  his  purpose,  and  on  the  18th  December 
dispatched  the  Note  which  had  long  been  ready,  with 
certain  alterations,  to  the  belligerent  Powers.  He  cer- 
tainly would  not  have  taken  this  step  if  he  had  not 
reckoned  on  certain  success.  Mr.  Wilson's  Note  could  not 
help  but  bear  out  our  peace  plans,  and  was  therefore  re- 
garded throughout  America  as  "pro-German."  For  this 
very  reason  it  caused  a  sensation.  On  the  New  York 
Exchange  it  was  followed  by  a  slump  in  war  industry 
values.  A  few  anti-German  newspapers,  which  began  to 
suspect  that  I  was  the  only  diplomatist  in  Washington 
who  knew  anything  of  the  President's  intentions,  de- 
clared that  I  had  made  millions  by  speculating  on  this 
probability.  I  had  already  been  accused  of  every  other 
imaginable  crime  by  the  Jingo  and  Entente  Press.  Mr. 
Wilson's  son-in-law,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  McAdoo, 
was  also  suspected  of  having  abused  his  political  infor- 
mation to  speculate  on  the  Exchange.  Soon  afterwards, 
when  I  was  dining  with  the  President,  he  asked  me  in  jest 
what  I  had  to  say  to  the  accusation  of  the  American  Press 
that  I  had  made  millions  in  this  way.  I  replied  that  I  had 
gradually  got  used  to  such  attacks,  and  they  only  amused 
me.  Mr.  Wilson  replied :  "That  is  right.  My  son-in-law 
takes  the  matter  much  too  seriously.  I  tell  him  'If  you 
get  so  angry,  people  will  think  the  story  is  true.'  : 

The  American  Press  was  thrown  into  the  greatest  ex- 
citement by  the  President's  Note  and  stormed  the  State 
Department.  Mr.  Lansing  was  surrounded  by  questioners 
and  remarked  that  the  United  States  had  the  greatest 
interest  in  bringing  the  war  to  an  end,  because  otherwise 
she  would  be  drawn  in  herself.  As  of  late,  as  has  already 
been  mentioned,  several  doubtful  submarine  incidents 


318       MY  THREE   YEARS  IN   AMERICA 

had  occurred,  the  Press  took  this  remark  to  mean  that 
the  United  States  would  enter  the  war  against  us  if  the 
intervention  move  came  to  nothing.  Mr.  Wilson  im- 
mediately, realized  that  such  an  interpretation  of  Mr. 
Lansing's  words  would  seriously  jeopardize  his  peace 
move.  If  the  Entente  could  hope  for  American  partici- 
pation in  the  war,  there  would  be  no  prospect  of  their 
consenting  to  a  "peace  without  victory."  In  that  case 
the  direction  of  their  policy  was  defined  beforehand. 
They  only  required  to  reject  the  offer  of  mediation  to 
reach  the  goal  of  their  long-cherished  hopes.  The  Presi- 
dent therefore  at  once  requested  Mr.  Lansing  to  con- 
tradict the  statements  of  the  Press.  This  was  done,  with 
the  observation  that  there  was  no  probability  of  the 
United  States  entering  the  war.  The  harm  could  not, 
however,  be  completely  wiped  out,  as  denials  are  always 
regarded  with  doubt. 
The  vital  parts  of  Mr.  Wilson's  Note  read  as  follows: 

"The  President  suggests  that  an  early  occasion  be 
sought  to  call  out  from  all  the  nations  now  at  war  such 
an  avowal  of  their  respective  views  as  to  the  terms  upon 
which  the  war  might  be  concluded  and  the  arrangements 
which  would  be  deemed  satisfactory  as  a  guaranty 
against  its  renewal  or  the  kindling  of  any  similar  con- 
flict in  the  future,  as  would  make  it  possible  frankly  to 
compare  them.  He  is  indifferent  as  to  the  means  taken 
to  accomplish  this.  He  would  be  happy  himself  to  serve, 
or  even  to  take  the  initiative  in  its  accomplishment,  in 
any  way  that  might  prove  acceptable,  but  he  has  no  desire 
to  determine  the  method  or  the  instrumentality.  One 
way  will  be  as  acceptable  to  him  as  another  if  only  the 
great  object  he  has  in  mind  be  attained. 

"In  the  measures  taken  to  secure  the  future  peace  of 
the  world  the  people  and  the  Government  of  the  United 


AMEEICAN   MEDIATION  319 

States  are  as  vitally  and  as  directly  interested  as  the 
Governments  now  at  war. 

"The  President  does  not  feel  that  it  is  right  and  his 
duty  to  point  out  their  intimate  interest  in  its  conclusion, 
lest  it  should  presently  be  too  late  to  accomplish  the 
greater  things  which  lie  beyond  its  conclusion,  lest  the 
situation  of  neutral  nations,  now  exceedingly  hard  to  en- 
dure, be  rendered  altogether  intolerable,  and  lest,  more 
than  all,  an  inquiry  be  done  civilization  itself  which  can 
never  be  atoned  for,  or  repaired. 

"Yet  the  concrete  objects  for  which  it  is  being  waged 
have  never  been  definitely  stated. 

"The  leaders  of  the  several  belligerents  have,  as  has 
been  said,  stated  those  objects  in  general  terms.  But, 
stated  in  general  terms,  they  seem  the  same  on  both  sides. 
Never  yet  have  the  authoritative  spokesmen  of  either  side 
avowed  the  precise  objects  which  would,  if  attained, 
satisfy  them  and  their  people  that  the  war  had  been 
fought  out.  The  world  has  been  left  to  conjecture  what 
definite  results,  what  actual  exchange  of  guaranties,  what 
political  or  territorial  changes  or  readjustments,  what 
stage  of  military  success  even,  would  bring  the  war  to 
an  end. 

"It  may  be  that  peace  is  nearer  than  we  know;  that  the 
terms  which  the  belligerents  on  the  one  side  and  on  the 
other  would  deem  it  necessary  to  insist  upon  are  not  so 
irreconcilable  as  some  have  feared;  that  an  interchange 
of  views  would  clear  the  way  at  least  for  conference  and 
make  the  permanent  concord  of  the  nations  a  hope  of 
the  immediate  future,  a  concert  of  nations  immediately 
practicable. 

"The  President  is  not  proposing  peace;  he  is  not  even 
offering  mediation.  He  is  merely  proposing  that  sound- 
ings be  taken  in  order  that  we  may  learn,  the  neutral 
with  the  belligerent,  how  near  the  haven  of  peace  may 


320       MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

be  for  which  all  mankind  longs  with  an  intense  and  in- 
creasing longing.  He  believes  that  the  spirit  in  which  he 
speaks  and  the  objects  which  he  seeks  will  be  understood 
by  all  concerned,  and  he  confidently  hopes  for  a  response 
which  will  bring  a  new  light  into  the  affairs  of  the 
world." 

As  this  Note  in  its  positive  proposals  was  considered 
rather  tentative  and  obscure — with  the  intention,  of 
course,  of  making  a  direct  negative  answer  impossible — 
I  asked  Mr.  Lansing  what  procedure  the  President  would 
like.  With  regard  to  this  conversation  I  reported  to 
Berlin  in  the  following  telegram : 

CIPHEB  TELEGRAM  No.  188 

"Washington,  21st  December,  1916. 

"Lansing  informed  me  a  few  days  ago  of  Wilson's 
Peace  Note,  and  said  that  the  American  Government  were 
becoming  more  and  more  involved  in  an  intolerable  posi- 
tion as  a  result  of  repeated  infringements  of  their  rights. 
Therefore  they  hoped  for  frank  statements  from  the 
belligerent  Powers  on  their  peace  conditions.  I  gave  it 
as  my  personal  opinion  that  this  would  be  difficult  except 
through  a  conference  because  of  the  press,  etc.  Lansing 
replied  that  the  statements  could  be  confidential,  and 
might  gradually  lead  to  a  conference.  This  seems  to  bear 
out  the  view,  widely  held  here,  that  Wilson  would  like 
to  act  as  a  'clearing  house'  for  the  further  steps  towards 
peace.  He  has  American  public  opinion  behind  him  with 
the  exception  of  our  inveterate  enemies,  who  regard 
Wilson's  Note  as  pro-German." 

My  conversation  with  Mr.  Lansing,  and  the  wording  of 
the  American  Note,  made  it  perfectly  clear  that  the  Presi- 
dent, in  the  first  place,  only  wished  to  be  informed  of  the 
peace  conditions  of  both  sides.  This  was  just  what  the 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  321 

Berlin  Government  did  not  want,  because  it  would  have 
aroused  a  bitter  struggle  between  the  different  shades  of 
public  opinion  as  to  the  "war  aims."  My  telegram 
therefore  received  the  following  negative  reply: 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  142 

"Berlin,  26th  December,  1916. 
"In  reply  to  Telegram  No.  188. 

"I  would  reply  to  the  American  Peace  Note  that  a 
direct  interchange  of  ideas  seems  to  us  most  likely  to 
attain  the  desired  result.  We  should,  therefore,  propose 
immediate  conference  of  delegates  of  belligerent  States 
in  neutral  place.  We  share  President's  view  that  work 
of  preventing  future  wars  could  only  begin  after  con- 
clusion of  present  war. 

"For  your  exclusive  personal  information:  as  place 
for  possible  conference  of  delegates  only  neutral  Europe 
can  be  considered  Apart  from  the  difficulty  of  getting 
to  and  from  America,  the  Portsmouth  experiences  teach 
that  American  indiscretion  and  interference  make 
appropriate  negotiations  impossible.  Interference  by 
President,  even  in  form  of  'clearing  house,'  would  be 
detrimental  to  our  interests  and  is,  therefore,  to  be  pre- 
vented. The  basis  for  future  conclusion  of  peace  we  must 
decide  in  direct  conference  with  our  enemies  if  we  are 
not  to  run  the  risk  of  being  robbed  of  our  gains  by  neutral 
pressure.  We,  therefore,  reject  the  idea  of  a  conference. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  objection,  after  conclusion 
of  peace,  to  sending  delegates  to  an  international  con- 
gress to  confer  on  problem  of  safeguarding  future  world 
peace. 

"ZlMMERMAKN.?> 

From  this  telegram  it  might  be  assumed  that  the  Im- 
perial Government  wished  to  limit  Mr.  Wilson's  activity 


322        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

to  bringing  the  belligerent  parties  to  the  conference  table. 
We  might  also  very  well  have  gone  on  working  with  the 
President  if  the  unrestricted  submarine  campaign  had 
not  intervened.  It  was,  however,  understandable  that  the 
Imperial  Government,  on  grounds  of  domestic  politics, 
should  not  want  to  name  our  peace  terms  at  once.  Ac- 
cordingly the  answer  to  the  Wilson  Note,  which  reached 
Berlin  with  extraordinary  promptness  on  the  26th  De- 
cember, amounted  to  a  friendly  negative. 
The  German  Note  ran  as  follows : 

"The  Imperial  Government  have  received  and  con- 
sidered the  President's  magnanimous  suggestion,  that  the 
foundation  should  be  laid  on  which  to  build  a  lasting 
peace,  in  the  friendly  spirit  which  permeates  the  Presi- 
dent's communication.  The  President  points  to  the  goal 
which  is  dear  to  his  heart,  and  leaves  the  choice  of  the 
way  open.  To  the  Imperial  Government  a  direct  inter- 
change of  ideas  would  seem  the  most  appropriate  way  of 
attaining  the  desired  result.  They,  therefore,  have  the 
honor  to  suggest,  in  the  sense  of  their  statement  of  the 
12th  inst.,  in  which  they  offered  the  hand  to  peace  nego- 
tiations, an  immediate  conference  of  delegates  of  the 
belligerent  States  in  a  neutral  place. 

"The  Imperial  Government  are  also  of  the  opinion  that 
the  great  work  of  preventing  future  wars  cannot  be  begun 
until  after  the  conclusion  of  the  present  struggle  of  the 
nations.  When  this  time  has  come  they  will  gladly  be 
ready  to  co-operate  with  the  United  States  of  America 
in  this  noble  work." 

The  reasons  of  domestic  politics  which  prevented  the 
Imperial  Government  from  naming  our  peace  conditions 
were  not  understood  in  America.  When  Secretary  of 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  323 

State  Lansing  discussed  with  me  the  German  Note  of 
26th  December  he  said  that  he  did  not  understand  why  we 
refused  to  name  our  conditions.  If  both  the  belligerent 
parties  communicated  their  conditions  a  compromise 
would  eventually  be  reached.  To  my  objection  that  our 
demands  were  so  moderate  that  they  would  be  inter- 
preted as  weakness  he  replied  that  we  ought  to  ask  for 
more,  indeed,  ask  for  anything  at  all  so  long  as  we  said 
something  that  would  provide  a  starting-point  from 
which  negotiations  could  be  opened  and  settled. 

This  conversation  had  no  immediate  practical  results, 
as  Colonel  House  asked  me  on  the  same  day  to  call  on 
him  in  New  York  With  regard  to  the  result  of  our  con- 
versation I  telegraphed  to  Berlin  as  follows : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  192 

"Washington,  29th  December,  1916. 

"House  told  me  it  is  Wilson's  opinion  that  a  confer- 
ence will  not  come  about  without  previous  confidential 
negotiations,  for  our  enemies,  as  things  are  at  present, 
would  refuse  the  invitation  or  make  their  consent  de- 
pendent on  conditions.  These  words  of  Colonel  House 
were  accompanied  by  an  invitation  to  strictly  confidential 
negotiations,  of  which  only  he  and  Mr.  Wilson  should 
know.  Under  these  circumstances  complete  discretion 
was  assured,  as  Wilson  and  House,  unlike  most  Ameri- 
cans, are  both  fairly  clever  at  keeping  secrets. 

"I  beg  for  early  instructions  as  to  whether  I  should 
reject  such  negotiations,  or  whether  your  Excellency 
wishes  to  authorize  me  to  accept  and  will  furnish  me 
with  instructions  accordingly.  As  I  have  always  re- 
ported, Wilson  lays  comparatively  little  importance  on 
the  territorial  side  of  the  peace  conditions.  I  am  still  of 
the  opinion  that  the  chief  emphasis  should  be  laid  on 
what  are  here  called  the  guarantees  for  the  future.  If 


324        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

we  could  give  Wilson  these  as  fully  as  possible  he  thinks 
he  could  bring  about  a  conference,  for  with  that  the  chief 
argument  of  our  enemies  would  be  disposed  of.  The 
latter  maintain  that  we  would  like  to  make  peace  now  in 
order  to  begin  the  war  when  a  more  favorable  oppor- 
tunity occurs,  while  our  enemies  are  obliged  to  hold 
together  the  coalition  that  has  been  formed  against  us 
in  order  to  attain  a  lasting  peace.  Wilson's  ideas  about 
such  guarantees  are  known  to  Your  Excellency.  They 
consist,  in  the  first  place,  of  disarmament  by  land  and  sea 
(freedom  of  the  seas),  provisions  for  arbitration  and  a 
peace  league.  I  think,  from  Your  Excellency's  speech  in 
the  Reichstag,  that  the  Imperial  Government  would  give 
such  guarantees  on  condition  that  peace  was  restored. 

"With  House  I  adopted  chiefly  a  listening  attitude  in 
order  not  to  compromise  Your  Excellency  in  any  way. 
However,  I  agree  with  Colonel  House's  view  that  a  peace 
conference  cannot  be  brought  about  without  the  help  of 
the  United  States.  Our  enemies  will  try  to  put  us  in  the 
wrong  by  saying  that  we  did,  indeed,  propose  a  confer- 
ence but  would  not  breathe  a  word  about  our  conditions 
or  guarantees.  I  can,  of  course,  only  judge  from  the 
American  standpoint.  We  have,  by  our  peace  offer, 
brought  about  a  great  change  in  public  opinion  over  here. 
This  advantage  we  shall  lose  entirely  if  the  idea  spread 
by  our  enemies  that  we  have  only  made  a  deliberately 
theatrical  peace  gesture  for  the  benefit  of  German  public 
opinion  is  confirmed.  What  steps  Wilson  will  take  should 
Your  Excellency  empower  me  to  enter  upon  such  negotia- 
tions is  not  yet  certain  and  depends  entirely  on  Your 
Excellency's  instructions.  House  had  an  idea  of  travel- 
ling to  England  in  person.  The  more  detailed  the  in- 
formation Your  Excellency  can  give  me  as  to  our  con- 
ditions and  readiness  to  give  guarantees  the  better  from 
my  point  of  view.  However,  I  do  not  know  whether  Your 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  325 

Excellency  may  not  perhaps  prefer  to  let  the  negotiations 
break  down  rather  than  accept  American  help.  In  my 
opinion  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  United  States  should 
take  part  in  all  the  negotiations.  All  that  is  necessary 
would  be  for  us  to  pledge  ourselves  to  the  guarantees, 
which  would  be  settled  in  detail  at  a  general  conference, 
after  a  conference  of  the  belligerents  had  concluded  a 
preliminary  peace. 

"I  submit  to  Your  Excellency  the  above  proposal  be- 
cause I  am  convinced  that  our  enemies  will  not  consent 
to  negotiations  unless  strong  pressure  is  brought  to  bear. 
This,  however,  will,  in  my  opinion,  occur  if  Your  Excel- 
lency thinks  it  possible  to  accept  American  intervention. 
With  the  exception  of  the  Belgian  question  the  American 
Government  ought  to  bring  us  more  advantage  than  dis- 
advantage, as  the  Americans  have  only  just  come  to  real- 
ize what  England's  mastery  of  the  seas  means." 

This  telegram  I  consider  the  most  important  of  the 
entire  negotiations,  inasmuch  as  it  reached  Berlin  on  the 
3rd  January,  therefore  six  days  before  the  decision  in 
favor  of  unrestricted  submarine  war.  When  I  re-read 
my  telegrams  to-day,  I  still — even  after  the  evidence 
given  before  the  Commission  of  the  National  Assembly — 
have  the  same  impression  as  at  that  time,  that  Mr.  Wilson 
agreed  with  our  wishes  and  regarded  it  as  his  principal 
task  to  bring  about  a  conference  of  the  belligerent  par- 
ties. I  cannot,  therefore,  understand  how  it  was  possible 
to  regard  this  American  offer  as  anything  but  an  offer 
of  peace  mediation,  and  how  the  Foreign  Office  could 
declare  to  G.  H.  Q.  that  there  had  never  been  any  question 
of  peace  mediation  by  Mr.  Wilson.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  quite  understand  that  Bethmann-Hollweg,  as  he  stated 
before  the  Commission  of  the  National  Assembly,  was 
very  sceptical  with  regard  to  the  President's  policy. 


326        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

Nevertheless,  an  offer  of  mediation  was  made  which  had 
to  be  accepted  or  refused.  In  the  first  case  it  was  neces- 
sary to  bring  forward  the  submarine  war  as  little  as 
possible;  in  the  other  we  should  have  to  create  a  clear 
diplomatic  situation  in  Washington,  if  we  were  to  avoid 
the  reproach  of  having  negotiated  with  Wilson  on  the 
subject  of  peace  while  at  the  same  time  planning  the 
submarine  campaign,  which  was  bound  to  bring  about  a 
rupture  with  the  United  States. 

When  I  spoke  with  Colonel  House  at  that  time  I  as- 
sumed that  the  principal  aim  of  the  German  Note  of  the 
26th  December  was  to  lay  particular  emphasis  on  our 
old  point  of  view,  already  known  to  Mr.  Wilson,  accord- 
ing to  which  the  regulation  of  territory  was  to  be  dealt 
with  by  the  belligerent  Powers,  and  the  League  of  Na- 
tions question  in  a  world  conference  under  the  American 
presidency.  At  the  time  Colonel  House  himself  always 
spoke  of  two  conferences  which  the  President  hoped  to 
bring  together  at  the  Hague.  The  one  was  to  consist  only 
of  the  belligerent  Powers  and  settle  the  territorial  ques- 
tions, the  other  was  to  be  a  world  conference  to  found 
the  League  of  Nations.  Mr.  Wilson  did  not  wish  to  in- 
vite the  conference  to  Washington  because  of  the  great 
distance  from  Europe  and  the  peculiar  position  of  the 
American  Press. 

As  I  have  already  mentioned,  their  opening  of  the  "in- 
tensified submarine  campaign"  had  been  planned  weeks 
before.  This  question  had  now  become  acute,  and  I  re- 
ceived the  two  following  Foreign  Office  telegrams  on  this 
subject : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  145 

"Berlin,  4th  January,  1917. 

"Question  of  armed  merchantmen  in  opinion  of  navy 
and  G.  H.  Q.  cannot  be  further  postponed. 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  327 

" Request  you  discuss  with  Lansing  following  memo- 
randum which  is  closely  connected  with  American  mem- 
orandum of  25th  March  and  leave  with  him  as  aide- 
memoire.  Our  action  against  armed  merchantmen,  which 
will  follow  the  lines  of  the  memorandum,  does  not,  of 
course,  imply  any  withdrawal  of  our  assurance  in  the 
Note  of  4th  May,  1916,  as  to  sinking  of  merchantmen. 

"ZlMMERMANN." 


CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  148 

"Berlin,  5th  January,  1917. 
"Pursuant  to  Telegram  No.  145  of  4th  January. 

"Please  telegraph  to  me  immediately  Your  Excel- 
lency's personal  opinion  as  to  impression  and  consequent 
action  with  regard  to  Telegram  No.  145.  This  must,  not, 
however,  be  discussed  with  Lansing,  as,  for  your  own 
strictly  personal  information,  action  against  armed  ships 
will  begin  immediately. 

STUMM." 


As  the  question  of  the  "intensified  submarine  war,"  in 
consequence  of  the  further  course  of  events,  became  of 
no  importance,  there  is  no  need  for  me  to  go  into  detail, 
and  I  will  confine  myself  to  giving  my  two  answers  as 
follows  : 

(1)  CODED  WIRELESS  TELEGRAM 

"Washington,  9th  January,  1917. 

"Telegrams  Nos.  145  and  148  received  to-day. 
"Request  most  urgently  to  postpone  further  steps  till 
you  have  received  my  answer." 


328       MY  THEEE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

(2)  CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Washington,  10th  Jannary,  1917. 
"In  reply  to  Telegram  1488. 

"Memorandum  Lansing  received.  In  my  opinion  steps 
in  sense  of  this  memorandum  will  cause  collapse  of  Wil- 
son's peace  mediation,  and  bring  about  instead  a  rupture 
with  America,  unless  action  is  postponed  at  least  until 
agreement  is  reached  with  American  Government.  It 
may  perhaps  be  possible  to  arrange  that  Americans 
should  be  warned  against  serving  on  ships  armed  for 
attack.  In  any  case,  however,  time  must  be  allowed  the 
Government  here  to  bring  this  about.  As  everything 
is  decided  by  Wilson,  discussion  with  Lansing  is  mere 
formality.  He  never  gives  an  answer  until  he  has  re- 
ceived instructions  from  Wilson.  In  present  case  latter 
must  read  memorandum  first. 

"How  much  importance  Your  Excellency  attaches  to 
Wilson's  peace  mediation  I  cannot  judge  from  here. 
Apart  from  that  it  is  my  duty  to  state  clearly  that  I  con- 
sider rupture  with  the  United  States  inevitable  if  im- 
mediate action  be  taken  on  the  lines  of  the  memorandum. " 

At  the  time  of  sending  the  telegram  I  received,  in  the 
following  telegram,  the  reply  of  the  Foreign  Office  to  Mr. 
Wilson's  last  proposals,  which  had  been  communicated 
to  me  through  Colonel  House : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  149 

"Berlin,  7th  January,  1917. 
"In  reply  to  Telegram  No.  192  of  29th  December. 

"For  your  personal  information. 
"American  intervention  for  definite  peace  negotiations 
is  entirely  undesirable  to  us  owing  to  public  opinion  here. 
Also  at  the  present  moment  we  must  avoid  anything  that 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  329 

might  deepen  the  impression  among  our  enemies  that  our 
peace  offer  is  in  any  way  the  result  of  our  finding  our- 
selves in  a  desperate  position.  That  is  not  the  case. 
We  are  convinced  that  economically  and  from  a  military 
point  of  view,  we  can  bring  the  war  to  victorious  conclu- 
sion. The  question  of  stating  our  conditions,  therefore, 
Your  Excellency  will  handle  dilatorily.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  authorize  you  to  state  now  our  readiness  to  co- 
operate in  that  part  of  the  programme  in  which  the  Pres- 
ident is  particularly  interesting  himself,  and  which  seems 
to  be  identical  with  the  so-called  *  Second  Convention'  out- 
lined by  Colonel  House  here.  In  this  we  include  arbitra- 
tion machinery,  peace  league,  and  examination  of  the 
question  of  disarmament  and  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas. 
We  are,  therefore,  in  principle,  prepared  for  those  guar- 
antees which  could  be  settled  in  detail  in  a  general  con- 
ference after  a  conference  of  the  belligerents  has  brought 
about  a  preliminary  peace.  To  prove  our  bona  fides  in 
this  direction,  we  are  also  ready  in  principle  to  open  im- 
mediate negotiations  with  the  United  States. 

"Your  Excellency  will  be  so  good  as  to  inform  the 
President  of  this,  and  request  him  to  work  out  the  pro- 
gramme for  the  conference  to  secure  world  peace,  and 
to  communicate  it  to  us  as  soon  as  possible. 

"Please  also  emphasize  to  Colonel  House  and  Presi- 
dent Wilson  that  our  actual  peace  conditions  are  very 
moderate,  and,  in  co'ntrast  to  those  of  the  Entente,  are 
kept  within  thoroughly  reasonable  limits;  this  is  also 
particularly  the  case  with  regard  to  Belgium,  which  we 
do  not  wish  to  annex.  Moreover,  we  desire  regulation  of 
commercial  and  traffic  communications  after  the  war 
without  any  idea  of  a  boycott,  a  demand  which  we  think 
will  be  understood  at  once  by  all  sane  people.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  question  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  we  can- 
not consent  to  discuss. 


330       MY   THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

"I  should  like  to  know  how  Your  Excellency  thinks  that 
pressure  could  be  brought  to  bear  by  President  Wilson 
to  incline  the  Entente  to  peace  negotiations.  In  the  light 
of  our  experience  during  the  two  years  of  war,  it  seems 
to  us  that  a  prohibition  of  the  export  of  war  material 
and  foodstuffs,  which  would  be  the  step  most  likely  to 
bring  the  Entente  into  line  and  would  also  be  the  best  for 
us,  is  unfortunately  little  likely  to  be  realized.  Only  an 
effective  pressure  in  this  direction  could  relieve  us  on 
our  side  of  the  urgent  necessity  of  resorting  again  to 
unrestricted  submarine  warfare.  Should  Your  Excel- 
lency have  proposals  to  make  as  to  how  the  unrestricted 
submarine  warfare  can  be  conducted  without  causing  a 
rupture  with  America,  I  request  you  to  report  immedi- 
ately by  telegram. 

* l  ZlMMERMANN. ' ' 


I  understood  from  this  telegram  that  I  was  to  continue 
the  negotiations  with  Colonel  House.  The  refusal  con- 
tained in  this  telegram  was  only  concerned  with  a  de- 
mand which  had  never  been  made  by  the  United  States. 
Moreover,  I  have  never  personally  had  much  faith  in  the 
appeal  to  public  opinion  which  would  have  nothing  to 
do  with  Mr.  "Wilson.  If  the  Imperial  Government  had 
a  few  weeks  before  desired  such  intervention,  they  must 
have  believed  that  German  public  opinion  would  agree  to 
it.  In  my  opinion,  too,  an  agitation  in  favor  of  American 
intervention  would  have  set  in  in  Germany  quite  on  its 
own  account  if  the  German  people  had  known  that  such 
action  by  President  Wilson  offered  good  prospects  of 
leading  to  a  peace  by  understanding.  Later,  when  I  re- 
turned from  America  to  Germany,  I  was  struck  by  the 
small  number  of  my  countrymen  who  privately  favored 
the  submarine  war.  I  therefore  still  think  that  German 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  331 

public  opinion  could  easily  have  been  persuaded  to  accept 
Mr.  Wilson's  mediation,  if  the  terrorism  of  the  support- 
ers of  submarine  war  had  been  dealt  with  in  time.  Herr 
von  Bethmann-Hollweg  has  spoken  before  the  Commis- 
sion of  the  National  Assembly  of  the  hypnotic  effect  ex- 
erted on  German  public  opinion  by  the  submarine  war. 

Though  the  Foreign  Office  telegram  of  the  7th  January 
mentions  the  ways  in  which  President  Wilson  could  bring 
pressure  to  bear  on  the  Entente,  it  had  already  struck 
me  at  that  time  that  the  first  step  taken  by  the  United 
States  to  force,  the  conclusion  of  peace  had  not  made 
the  impression  in  Germany  that  its  importance  war- 
ranted. 

The  various  "War  Memories"  that  have  .now  been 
published  in  Germany  do  not  touch  on  this  point.  As 
has  already  been  mentioned,  the  "Federal  Reserve 
Board,"  which  corresponds  to  our  Reichsbank,  had  issued 
a  warning  against  the  raising  of  loans  for  belligerent 
States.  In  this  way  the  American  source  of  funds  was 
practically  cut  off.  Already  foreign  securities  were  in 
general  unwillingly  handled.  If  the  loans  had  been  com- 
pletely forbidden,  such  results  would  not  have  transpired, 
as  the  American  avails  himself  of  bank  credit  to  a  far 
greater  extent  than  is  usual  in  other  countries.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  after 
they  had  entered  the  war,  themselves  raised  "Liberty 
loans,"  and  advanced  money  to  their  Allies  because  this 
procedure  accorded  much  more  closely  with  American 
inclinations  than  the  raising  of  foreign  loans. 

As  is  well  known,  after  the  German  peace  action  had 
failed,  the  definite  decision  to  declare  unrestricted  sub- 
marine war  was  taken  in  Pless  on  the  9th  January.  In 
this  way,  as  the  Chancellor  said,  the  Rubicon  was  crossed. 
War  with  the  United  States  seemed  inevitable,  unless  it 
were  found  possible  at  the  eleventh  hour  to  annul  the 


332       MY  THREE  YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

decision  of  the  German  Government.  Herr  von  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg  has  declared  before  the  Commission  of  the 
National  Assembly  that  he  had  not  sufficient  faith  in  Mr. 
Wilson's  peace  intervention  to  advise  the  Emperor  to 
oppose  the  demand  of  G.  H.  Q.  for  the  declaration  of  un- 
restricted submarine  war. 

At  the  end  of  this  chapter  I  give  a  report  which  I  drew 
up  on  the  attitude  of  American  public  opinion  towards 
intervention. 

I  should  like  once  more  to  emphasize  that  in  judging 
and  estimating  American  politics  I  have  always  given 
more  weight  to  public  opinion  than  to  the  views  or  inten- 
tions of  any  individual  statesman. 

"Washington,  llth  December,  1916. 
"During  the  last  phases  of  the  presidential  elections 
the  American  Press  used  to  be  so  much  occupied  with 
questions  of  domestic  policy  that  there  was  little  space 
left  for  the  discussion  of  foreign  events.  In  contrast  with 
this,  in  this  year's  campaign  the  Press  politics  on  ques- 
tions of  foreign  policy  played  a  very  important  part,  but 
the  discussion  was  naturally  so  much  under  the  influence 
of  the  aims  and  considerations  of  party  politics  that  a 
report  on  the  attitude  of  the  Press  towards  the  European 
belligerents  at  that  time  could  not  have  given  a  true  pic- 
ture. This  was  quite  particularly  the  case  with  regard 
to  Germany.  On  one  hand  the  Republican  organs,  out 
of  regard  for  the  votes  of  the  German- Americans,  found 
it  necessary  considerably  to  moderate  their  speech,  while 
on  the  other  the  Democratic  Press  branded  the  Republi- 
can candidate  as  a  'Kaiserite,'  owing  to  his  German- 
American  following,  and  at  the  same  time  threw  more 
mud  than  ever  over  Germany  and  everything  German; 
until  in  the  last  weeks  of  the  election  campaign  the  dawn- 
ing hope  of  bringing  over  great  masses  of  Bindestrichler 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  333 

into  the  Democratic  camp  brought  about  a  sudden  mod- 
eration in  the  tone  of  this  organ. 

"Only  now,  after  the  absurdities  of  the  presidential 
election  are  over,  is  it  again  possible  to  arrive  at  an 
approximately  clear  judgment  as  to  the  attitude  of  the 
Press  towards  Germany  and  the  other  belligerent  na- 
tions. 

"This  judgment  may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows: 

"The  American  Press  in  general  takes  sides  less  pas- 
sionately with  either  party  than  was  formerly  the  case, 
and  is  heartily  tired  of  the  war.  This  does  not  in  any 
way  imply  that  our  enemies  have  not  still  the  support 
of  a  number  of  very  influential  partisans,  who  are  all 
the  time  fighting  loyally  for  the  *  Cause  of  the  Allies, '  let 
slip  no  opportunity  to  malign  Germany  and,  in  the  event 
of  a  threatened  crisis,  form  an  element  of  danger  for  us 
which  should  not  be  underestimated.  It  may  even  be 
admitted  that  the  tone  which  the  organs  of  this  tendency, 
particularly  strongly  represented  in  New  York,  Boston 
and  Philadelphia,  adopt  against  Germany  has  become,  if 
possible,  more  bitter  during  the  last  few  months.  But  it 
is  questionable  whether  the  great  mass  of  the  influential 
papers,  particularly  in  the  remoter  districts  of  the  At- 
lantic coast,  have  become  more  impartial.  They  don't 
like  us  and  don't  trust  us,  but  have  also  gradually  got 
to  know  but  not  to  esteem  England. 

"The  present  attitude  of  America  towards  the  cause 
of  the  Entente  Powers,  with  which  that  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  independent  Press  coincide,  was  defined  as 
follows  by  the  New  York  Tribune,  one  of  the  most  invet- 
erate champions  of  our  enemies  at  the  present  time: 
'Despite  a  very  widespread  sympathy  for  France  and  a 
well-defined  affection  for  Great  Britain  in  a  limited  circle 
of  Americans,  there  has  been  no  acceptance  of  the  Allied 


334       MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

points  of  view  as  to  the  war,  and  there  is  not  now  the 
smallest  chance  that  this  will  be  the  case.  .  .  .  The  thing 
that  the  British  have  failed  to  get  before  the  American 
people  is  the  belief  that  the  war  was  one  in  which  the 
question  of  humanity  and  of  civilization  was  uppermost 
for  the  British.  The  Germans  have  succeeded  in  making 
Americans  in  very  great  numbers  believe  that  it  is  purely 
and  simply  a  war  of  trade  and  commerce  between  the 
British  and  the  Germans,  and  the  various  economic  con- 
ference proposals  have  served  to  emphasize  this  idea.' 

"The  violation  of  Greece,  the  ruthless  procedure 
against  Ireland  since  the  Easter  rebellion — on  which  a 
well-directed  Press  service  of  American-Irish,  in  spite 
of  the  strict  English  censorship,  keeps  public  opinion 
constantly  informed — the  selfish  sacrifice  of  Serbia,  Mon- 
tenegro and  Rumania,  as  well  as  the  illegal  economic 
measures  against  Holland  and  Scandinavia,  have  seri- 
ously shaken  England's  reputation  here  as  the  protec- 
tress of  the  small  nations. 

"Certain  remarks  of  the  English  Press  of  altogether 
too  free  a  nature  on  the  American  Government,  their  dis- 
paraging cartoons  of  the  President  and  the  patronizing 
air  adopted  by  many  English  war  journals  and  often  in 
the  English  daily  Press  towards  America — as,  for  exam- 
ple, in  a  recent  number  of  the  Morning  Post,  alleged 
former  German  hankerings  for  colonies  in  South  Amer- 
ica, from  the  realization  of  which  the  Union  is  said  to 
have  been  protected  by  England — are  arousing  increas- 
ing dissatisfaction  here.  The  persistent  and  systematic 
attempts  of  the  British  Press  Bureau  to  sow  dissension 
between  America  and  Germany  on  the  question  of  the 
submarine  war  are  resented.  The  sharp  British  replies 
to  American  representations  on  the  question  of  the  *  black 
list'  and  the  *  post-blockade,'  and,  England's  latest  pin- 
prick, the  refusal  of  the  request  for  a  free  passage  for 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  335 

the  Austrian  Ambassador,  condemned  even  by  snch  a 
pro-British  paper  as  the  Philadelphian  Public  Ledger  as 
a  *  British  affront,'  have  created  a  very  bad  impression. 
'It  is  unmistakable,'  says  the  pro-Entente  Evening  Sun, 
'that  American  opinion  has  been  irritated  and  sympathy 
estranged  by  many  acts  which  have  damaged  our  inter- 
ests and  wounded  our  national  self-respect.' 

"Above  all,  however,  the  serious  shortcomings  of  the 
enemy  General  Staffs,  which  are  criticised  here  with  un- 
professional exaggeration,  and  their  ineffectiveness — 'a 
lamentable  succession  of  false  moves,'  as  they  are  called 
by  the  respected  Springfield  Republican — have  produced 
a  general  disillusionment  as  to  the  efficiency  of  our  ene- 
mies, which  has  damped  even  the  old  enthusiasm  over  the 
heroic  bearing  of  the  French  army  and  its  commander- 
in-chief,  who  is  very  popular  over  here.  'We  give  thanks 
for  Joffre,'  was  the  heading  of  a  typical  leading  article 
in  the  New  York  Sun  on  Thanksgiving  Day.  The  recent 
warning  of  the  American  banks  by  the  Federal  Board 
against  accepting  through  the  post  large  quantities  of 
unsecured  foreign  treasury  notes — a  warning  which  could 
only  refer  to  the  issue  by  the  Morgan  bank  of  English 
and  French  short-dated  securities — has  also  shattered 
the  belief  in  the  inexhaustible  economic  resources  of 
France  and  England.  With  a  quite  exceptional  expendi- 
ture of  effort  the  newspapers  under  British  or  French 
influence,  of  which  the  most  important  are  the  New  York 
Times,  New  York  Herald  and  Evening  Telegram;  the 
Philadelphian  Public  Ledger,  the  Chicago  Herald,  and  the 
Providence  Journal,  in  addition  to  a  number  of  other 
sworn  partisans  of  the  Entente  Powers,  among  which 
may  be  mentioned  particularly  the  New  York  Tribune, 
New  York  Sun  and  Evening  Sun;  New  York  Evening 
Post,  Journal  of  Commerce,  New  York  Globe;  Brooklyn 
Daily  Eagle,  Boston  Evening  Transcript  and  Philadel- 


336       MY   THREE   YEAES  IN   AMERICA 

phian  Inquirer,  have  lately  been  trying  to  raise  our  ene- 
mies in  the  esteem  of  public  opinion  here.  This  is  shown 
particularly  in  the  headlines  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
war  news  in  these  papers.  All  news  that  is  detrimental 
to  the  German  cause,  even  when  it  comes  from  an  unre- 
liable source,  is  printed  in  heavy  type  in  the  most  striking 
position.  Every  gain  of  ground  by  the  Allies,  however, 
slight,  is  hailed  as  a  great  victory,  and  even  the  commu- 
nications of  private  agencies  which  are  in  contradiction 
to  the  official  reports  of  the  enemy,  and  obviously  in- 
ventions, appear  as  accomplished  facts  in  the  headlines 
of  the  papers.  Their  leading  articles  pour  out  hatred 
and  malice  against  Germany.  Their  letter  boxes  are 
filled  with  contributions  which  are  full  of  venom  and  gall 
against  Germany  and  her  allies,  and  their  feuilletons  or 
Sunday  supplements  contain  about  the  strongest  attacks 
that  have  ever  been  brought  against  us  even  in  the  Amer- 
ican Press.  But  it  looks  as  though  their  tactics  no  longer 
have  the  same  success  as  of  old.  Their  utterances,  apart 
from  such  as  deal  with  the  Belgian  or  Lusitania  themes, 
no  longer  make  any  impression. 

"On  the  other  side  the  consistently  friendly  attitude 
of  the  ten  papers  of  the  Hearst  syndicate,  which  come 
daily  into  the  hands  of  more  than  three  million  readers 
in  all  parts  of  the  country,  has  of  late  become  even  much 
more  friendly  as  a  result  of  the  English  boycott  of  the 
International  News  Service  and  the  exclusion  of  all  the 
Hearst  publications  from  circulation  in  Canada.  Mr. 
Hearst  has  replied  to  the  inconceivably  shortsighted  pol- 
icy of  the  British  authorities  towards  his  news  service 
in  a  series  of  forcible,  full-page  leading  articles  against 
the  British  censorship  which  must  have  seriously  shaken 
the  confidence,  apart  from  this  already  weakened  long 
ago,  of  the  American  Press  in  all  news  coming  from  Eng- 
land. Not  only  did  the  articles  in  question  contain  a 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  337 

crushing  criticism  of  the  English  system  of  suppressing 
and  distorting  the  truth,  but  they  also  proved  that  for 
years  America  had  been  misled  systematically  from  Lon- 
don in  its  judgment  of  foreign  nations — e.g.,  the  *  degen- 
erate* French.  Apart  from  this  the  Hearst  newspapers 
repeatedly  explained  in  detail  how  in  the  autumn  of  1916 
the  position  of  the  Central  Powers  was  excellent,  while 
that  of  England  and  her  allies  was  completely  hopeless. 
It  should  be  emphasized  that  the  Hearst  newspapers  are, 
nevertheless,  not  to  be  regarded  as  blindly  pro-German, 
for  they  publish  a  good  deal  that  can  hardly  be  desirable 
for  us — e.g.,  occasional  articles  on  the  *  German  Peril,' 
for  which  new  food  was  provided  by  the  exploits  of  the 
Deutschland,  and  more  especially  U53,  and  was  exploited 
here  to  support  the  idea  of  increasing  the  army  and  navy. 
The  papers  named  are  based  on  a  sound  American  pol- 
icy, but  with  their  sharp,  anti-English  tendency  do  us 
much  more  good  than  papers  with  admitted  pro-German 
bias.  The  chief  value  of  the  pro-German  attitude  of  the 
organs  of  the  Hearst  syndicate  lies  in  the  fact  that  their 
influence  is  not  limited  to  any  particular  town  or  district, 
but  extends  over  the  whole  Union.  An  English  critic, 
S.  K.  Ratcliffe,  recently  wrote  about  American  newspa- 
pers in  the  Manchester  Guardian.  .  .  .  'Northern  papers 
are  of  no  account  in  the  South ;  the  most  influential  New 
York  journals  do  not  exist  for  the  people  of  the  Pacific 
coast,  and  carry  little  weight  in  the  Middle  States. 
Hence,  summaries  of  opinion — confined  to  a  small  num- 
ber of  papers  published  east  of  the  Mississippi — are  im- 
perfectly representative  of  the  Republic/  This  accu- 
rately observed  geographical  limitation  of  the  influence  of 
the  leading  American  newspapers  is  substantially  over- 
come by  the  Hearst  organization,  for  the  leading  articles 
which  appear  in  the  New  York  American  to-day  will  ap- 
pear to-morrow  in  the  allied  papers  of  Boston,  Chicago 


338       MY   THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

and  Atlanta,  and  the  day  after  in  San  Francisco  and 
Los  Angeles. 

"Another  factor  that  has  improved  the  attitude  of  the 
American  Press  towards  Germany  is  the  recent  impor- 
tant development  of  the  wireless  news  service.  By  this 
I  do  not  mean  so  much  the  extension  of  the  trans- Atlantic 
service,  in  the  communications  of  which  a  considerable 
part  of  the  Press  here  seems  unfortunately  to  take  little 
interest,  but  the  radiographic  transmission  of  the  full 
reports  of  American  correspondents  in  Berlin  and  on  the 
German  fronts  to  the  Amp.rip.flTi  newspapers  or  news 
agencies.  Among  the  interesting  reports  that  have  been 
received  direct  and  unmutilated  in  this  way  those  of 
Messrs.  William  B.  Hale,  Karl  von  Wiegand,  Cyril  Brown 
and  Karl  W.  Ackerman  have  exerted  a  particularly  fa- 
vorable influence  for  us,  especially  at  the  critical  mo- 
ments of  the  break-through  in  southern  Galicia  and  the 
battles  of  the  Somme,  when,  without  the  special  news 
service  via  Nauen,  the  American  Press  would  have  been 
completely  misled  by  the  mass  of  reports  that  were  flow- 
ing in  from  London.  Among  American  journalists  who 
worked  in  Germany,  Herbert  Swope  should  be  particu- 
larly mentioned,  who,  after  his  return,  published  in  The 
World  and  other  Pulitzer  papers,  a  series  of  fourteen 
articles  on  the  situation  and  feeling  in  Germany  which 
attracted  the  attention  of  both  the  Press  and  the  reading 
public.  In  a  most  undesirable  way  Mr.  Swope  in  his  first 
articles,  which  appeared  immediately  before  the  election 
— it  was  simply  an  electioneering  monceuvre — emphasized 
the  deep  hatred  of  the  German  people  for  the  United 
States,  and  the  alleged  general  wish  of  all  German  circles 
to  see  Mr.  Wilson  defeated  at  the  election  as  a  punish- 
ment for  his  unneutral  attitude.  To  compensate  for  this 
he  performed  a  very  valuable  service  for  us  in  his  later 
articles  by  giving  a  convincing  account  of  the  economic 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  339 

situation  in  Germany  at  that  time,  which  removed  all 
doubt  over  here  as  to  the  ability  of  our  enemies  to  starve 
Germany  out,  and  revived  public  respect  for  Germany's 
efficiency  and  organizing-power. 

"The  great  and  respectful  tribute  which  the  American 
Press  pays  to  German  *  efficiency  'at  every  opportunity — 
and  during  the  last  few  months  there  have  been  many 
such  opportunities — can,  however,  do  little  or  nothing  to 
alter  the  deep  'sentiment*  against  Germany.  As  soon  as 
the  above-mentioned  themes  of  Belgium  and  the  Lusita- 
nia  are  mentioned,  there  are  few  papers  that  do  not  in- 
dulge, either  in  aggressive  or  more  moderate  terms,  in 
expressions  of  horror  at  German  'frightfulness'  and 
'ruthlessness.' 

"This  deep-rooted  feeling  of  the  whole  Press  has  been 
once  more  revived  in  very  regrettable  fashion  by  the  re- 
cent Belgian  deportations.  The  indignation  of  the  Press 
at  this  'slavery'  which  is  being  imposed  on  Belgium  is 
general,  deep-rooted  and  genuine.  Even  newspapers 
which  express  themselves  in  pretty  harsh  terms  on  the 
subject  of  the  English  illegalities  condemn  these  depor- 
tations in  no  measured  terms.  The  interview  given  by 
Governor-General  von  Bissing  to  the  journalist  Cyril 
Brown  on  the  subject  of  these  deportations,  published  on 
the  front  page  of  the  New  York  Times,  has  unfortunately 
not  made  the  slightest  impression  here.  General  von 
Bissing 's  second  statement  on  the  same  subject  in  which, 
among  other  things,  he  emphatically  declared  it  his  duty 
to  see  that  as  few  Germans  as  possible  should  be  kept 
out  of  the  firing  line  to  guard  Belgium,  was  grist  for  the 
mill  of  the  enemy  Press.  'The  cat  is  out  of  the  bag,' 
writes  the  New  York  Times,  which  does  not  miss  the  op- 
portunity of  reminding  its  readers  of  General  von  Bis- 
sing's  responsibility  for  the  shooting  of  Edith  Cavell. 
'Not  a  word  about  economic  necessity,  Germany  needs 


340       MY   THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

men  at  the  front  Simple,  almost  crnde  in  fact,  and  com- 
pletely German.'  The  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger  says : 
'The  original  offence,  the  invasion  of  Belgian  territory, 
regardless  of  treaty  obligations,  has  almost  been  obliter- 
ated by  the  cruelty  which  is  now  depopulating  the  land, 
stripping  it  of  all  its  resources,  sending  its  people  into 
exile  and  slavery,  making  a  wilderness  and  calling  it 
order.  There  has  not  been  such  a  tragedy  since  the  fierce 
barbarian  tribes  swept  over  Europe;  none  would  have 
believed  two  years  ago  that  it  could  be  enacted.'  Such 
expressions  as  'Huns,'  'Attila,'  'Hohenzollern  slave 
trade,'  and  others  of  a  similar  nature  are  the  order  of 
the  day,  and  the  excitement  is  further  fanned  by  reports 
from  London  and  Le  Havre,  which  no  one  here  can  verify, 
and  provocative  interviews,  among  which  special  mention 
must  be  made  of  that  of  Herr  Carton  de  Wiart  with  the 
World  correspondent.  The  news  that  Mr.  Lansing  had 
forwarded  to  Berlin  a  protest  against  the  Belgian  depor- 
tations was  received  with  great  applause  by  the  whole 
of  the  Press.  The  resulting  official  statement  that  this 
protest  had  been  made  not  in  the  name  of  the  United 
States  but  in  the  name  of  the  Kingdom  of  Belgium,  rep- 
resented by  the  American  Government,  caused  dissatis- 
faction and  a  demand  that  the  United  States  Government 
should  also  protest  to  Berlin  on  its  own  account.  Reso- 
lutions of  protest  were  sent  to  the  President  and  pub- 
lished in  the  Press,  and  indignation  meetings  on  a  large 
scale  are  announced  to  take  place  in  Boston  and  New 
York  which  will  offer  the  Press  further  opportunities 
for  anti-German  demonstrations. 

".With  regard  to  the  question  of  submarine  warfare 
the  American  Press  are  quite  unanimous  on  one  point, 
that  a  withdrawal  of  the  assurances  given  by  Germany 
after  the  Sussex  incident,  or  even  an  intentional  breach 
of  these,  is  bound  to  bring  about,  as  it  were,  automati- 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  341 

cally,  a  breaking-off  of  diplomatic  relations  with  Ger- 
many ;  and  it  is  also  clear  that  such  a  rupture  would  only 
be  the  first  step  towards  open  war.  The  great  majority 
of  the  leading  American  newspapers  express  at  every 
opportunity  the  genuine  hope  that  such  a  contingency 
will  not  arise.  Only  the  chauvinistic,  anti-German  ele- 
ment in  the  Press  holds  that  the  casus  ruptionis  has 
actually  arisen  and  devotes  itself  to  publishing  and  com- 
menting on,  in  the  most  sensational  manner,  the  alleged 
crimes  of  the  German  submarines.  The  newspapers  of 
this  order  are  abundantly  supplied  with  pertinent  mate- 
rial, particularly  news  of  alleged  sinkings  without  warn- 
ings, of  which  they  on  their  side — probably  with  the 
co-operation  of  the  British  authorities  here — know  how 
to  increase  the  effect  by  means  of  exaggerated  reports 
of  out-of-date  'sacrifices  to  German  frightfulness,'  which 
are  eagerly  swallowed  here.  In  spite  of  the  masterly  skill 
with  which  this  working  on  public  feeling  against  the 
handling  of  our  submarine  war  is  managed,  it  may  be 
taken  for  granted  that  it  does  not  get  a  hold.  However 
deep  and  however  genuine  may  be  the  horror  with  which 
the  American  people  regard  such  incidents  as  the  sinking 
of  the  Lusitania — a  fact  that  must  be  continually  empha- 
sized— equally  great  is  obviously  their  indifference  to- 
wards the  destruction  of  non- American  neutral  shipping, 
so  long  as  the  rules  of  cruiser  warfare  continue  to  be 
observed.  People  over  here  have  gradually  got  accus- 
tomed to  reading  daily  reports  of  the  sinking  of  another 
half  dozen  British  or  other  vessels.  The  daily  papers 
print  them  quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  only  in  a 
prominent  position  when  the  bag  reaches  an  unusually 
high  figure.  In  the  editorial  columns  of  many  papers  a 
certain  malicious  joy  is  even  observable,  that  England, 
who  boasts  of  having  mastered  the  submarine,  should 
now  be  so  mercilessly  and  persistently  bled. 


342       MY   THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

"One  phase  of  the  submarine  war  has,  indeed,  thrown 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  American  Press  into  a  state  of 
excitement,  namely,  the  piratic  exploits  of  U53  off  the 
coast  of  New  England.  The  destruction  wrought  by  this 
boat  so  close  at  hand,  and  the  consequent  paralysis  for 
several  days  of  all  merchant  shipping,  was  too  much 
even  for  the  moderate  papers,  and  resulted  in  strong 
outbursts  against  our  'ruthlessness.'  Apparently  this 
circumstance  has  recently  been  exploited  by  our  enemies 
as  a  new  way  of  influencing  public  opinion  against  us. 
Mysterious  British  battleships  off  the  Atlantic  coast  are 
supposed  to  send  out  wireless  warnings  against  the  al- 
leged approach  of  German  submarines,  and  these  are 
published  in  the  American  Press  partly  under  panic 
headlines,  and  arouse  indignation.  This  shady  proced- 
ure, in  which  the  pro-English  press  naturally  takes  the 
lead,  recently  aroused  Mr.  Lansing  to  make  a  forceful 
speech  against  the  unknown  originators  of  these  rumors. 
It  may  be  particularly  emphasized,  speaking  quite  gener- 
ally, that  the  great  influence  exerted  by  the  State  De- 
partment on  the  Washington  correspondents  of  the  lead- 
ing newspapers  during  the  last  few  months,  during  which 
there  has  been  a  constant  threat  of  the  submarine  ques- 
tion coming  to  a  head,  has  always  been  on  the  side  of 
peace,  with  the  result  that  in  more  than  one  case,  and 
particularly  in  the  cases  of  the  sinking  of  the  Marina  and 
Arabia,  any  serious  agitation  on  the  part  of  the  Press  has 
been  avoided.  With  regard  to  the  general  war  situation, 
the  conviction  has  for  some  time  been  gaining  ground 
with  the  great  majority  of  the  leading  American  news- 
papers, that  a  decisive  victory  by  either  of  the  two  bel- 
ligerent groups  of  Powers  is  no  longer  to  be  expected. 
With  the  exception  of  a  continually  dwindling  minority 
which  even  to-day  still  promise  their  readers  the  *  ulti- 
mate victory'  of  the  Entente  Powers,  the  verdict  of  the 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  343 

American  Press  on  the  probable  result  of  the  war  is  *a 
draw/  'a  stalemate.'  Only  a  few  newspapers,  to  which 
belong  those  of  the  Hearst  Syndicate,  confess  to  the  be- 
lief in  'a  stalemate,  or  a  victory  of  the  Teutonic  Allies.' 
How  those  newspapers  which  are  at  the  service  of  our 
enemies,  and  which  still  hold  to  the  legend  of  a  miscarried 
German  war  of  aggression,  really  judge  the  situation  is 
only  seen  occasionally  from  incidental  statements  like  the 
following  confession  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  which 
preaches  against  a  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  present  po- 
sition; this  paper  says  that  the  American  people  should 
see  that  if  the  Allies  were  to  conclude  peace  now  the 
result  would  be  a  tremendous  victory  for  Germany.  Such 
isolated,  misleading  views  as  this  do  not,  however,  suc- 
ceed in  affecting  in  any  way  the  general  impression  that 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  leading  newspapers  regard 
the  war  as  indecisive,  especially  after  the  fruitless  con- 
clusion of  our  operations  before  Verdun,  the  collapse  of 
the  great  offensives  on  the  Somme  and  in  southern  Gali- 
cia,  as  well  as  in  view  of  the  fact,  confirmed  on  many 
sides,  that  the  British  blockade  has  not  attained  its  end, 
the  starvation  of  Germany. 

"Our  recent  feats  of  arms  in  Eumania  have  hardly 
affected  this  opinion.  In  view  of  the  great  hopes,  placed 
by  our  enemies  and  the  newspapers  in  their  service,  on 
Eumania 's  entry  into  the  war,  these  successes  are  recog- 
nized on  all  sides  readily  or  grudgingly  and  without  any 
spark  of  sympathy  for  the  defeated  country,  and  in  some 
cases  are  even  hailed  as  brilliant  military  achievements  of 
the  first  rank.  The  preponderating  opinion  of  the  Press, 
however,  passes  over  the  fact  that  the  conquest  of  Eu- 
mania, although  opening  up  to  Germany  important  new 
resources,  is  scarcely  likely  to  influence  to  any  consider- 
able degree  the  situation  which  has  resulted  from  the  war 


344       MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

of  positions  in  East  and  West,  and  the  still  unbroken 
British  mastery  of  the  seas. 

"The  view  that  the  war  has  reached  a  stalemate  which, 
since  President  Wilson's  speech  at  Charlotte  in  May  of 
this  year,  had  been  maintained  by  several  papers,  but 
which  has  recently  become  general,  apart  from  the  defi- 
nitely pro- Ally  organs,  is  closely  connected  with  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  question  of  peace  restoration  which  for  the 
American  Press  is  in  many  cases  synonymous  with  the 
question  of  intervention  by  the  United  States  or  all 
the  neutral  nations. 

"There  was  a  time  when  a  very  important  part  of  the 
American  Press  seemed  to  stand  on  the  level  of  the  catch- 
phrase  which  was  going  the  round  at  that  time:  'Wall 
Street  now  fears  nothing  except  the  outbreak  of  peace.' 
These  times,  however,  are  long  since  past.  The  desire 
for  a  speedy  end  of  the  hostilities  in  Europe  is  to-day 
genuine,  and  shared  by  almost  the  whole  Press.  From 
the  enemy  camp  we  get  the  following  testimony  in  the 
New  York  Tribune,  which  would  like  to  convert  its  read- 
ers to  less  humane  views:  'For  millions  of  Americans 
this  war  is  a  tragedy,  a  crime,  the  offspring  of  collective 
madness,'  and  in  its  view  the  greatest  service  that  Amer- 
ica can  render  to  the  world — an  allusion  to  the  catch- 
phrase  coined  by  Henry  Ford  for  his  ill-starred  peace 
mission  is — 'to  fetch  the  lads  out  of  the  trenches.'  The 
discussion  of  the  premises  for  the  conclusion  of  peace, 
therefore,  has  for  some  time  occupied  an  important  place 
in  the  daily  papers,  and  also  to  some  extent  in  the  re- 
views. Reports  on  the  meetings  of  the  many  American 
peace  societies  are  given  with  the  greatest  fulness,  and 
anything  in  the  overseas  news  connected  with  the  question 
of  a  restoration  of  peace  is  printed  in  a  prominent  posi- 
tion and  duly  discussed  in  the  leading  articles. 

"It  would  lead  me  too  far  to  give  even  an  approxi- 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  345 

mately  complete  picture  of  this  discussion  with  which 
the  whole  Press  is  occupied.  But  one  point  demands 
closer  examination:  the  attitude  of  the  leading  papers 
to  the  German  readiness  for  peace,  publicly  expressed 
by  Your  Excellency  on  three  different  occasions  in  the 
last  few  weeks. 

"Your  Excellency's  great  speech  before  the  Budget 
Committee  of  the  Reichstag  unfortunately  reached  here 
at  a  time  when  the  whole  interest  of  the  Press  and  pub- 
lic was  directed  to  the  at  first  uncertain  result  of  the 
presidential  election.  Though  generally  printed,  in  the 
evening  papers  for  the  most  part  only  in  extracts,  it  was 
practically  passed  over  in  the  editorial  columns.  An 
attempt  to  start  a  belated  Press  discussion  of  the  speech 
by  circulating  it  in  the  form  of  specially  printed  bro- 
chures, or  at  least  to  induce  those  papers  which  had  only 
given  extracts  to  publish  the  whole  text,  unfortunately 
failed ;  only  the  Current  History,  a  special  war  magazine 
of  the  New  York  Times,  felt  itself  called  upon  to  reprint 
the  speech  in  extenso  in  its  December  number.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  passage  of  the  speech  which  stated  our 
readiness  after  this  war  to  take  a  part  in  international 
organizations  for  insuring  peace  was  widely  circulated 
here,  and  attracted  corresponding  attention.  As  I,  ac- 
cording to  instructions,  communicated  this  passage  to  the 
'League  to  Enforce  Peace'  as  the  official  German  message 
for  their  banquet  held  here  on  the  24th  inst.,  it  was  cir- 
culated throughout  the  country  in  the  detailed  Press  re- 
ports on  this  association,  which  is  greatly  respected  here, 
and  commented  on  by  many  newspapers  with  all  the  more 
sympathy  since  Germany's  sceptical  reserve  hitherto 
towards  the  question  of  a  peaceful  settlement  of  inter- 
national differences  has  always  worked  strongly  against 
us  here. 

"The  interview  granted  by  Your  Excellency  to  the 


346       MY  THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

American  journalist  Hale  has  been  printed  particularly 
fully  by  the  ten  Hearst  newspapers,  and  further  by  all 
the  other  subscribers  to  the  International  News  Service. 
In  the  New  York  American  on  Thanksgiving  Day  it  oc- 
cupied, together  with  a  portrait  of  Your  Excellency,  the 
whole  front  page.  At  special  request  from  many  quar- 
ters the  paper  repeated  the  report  three  days  later. 

" Germany's  readiness  to  enter  into  peace  negotiations, 
expressed  once  more  by  Your  Excellency  at  this  inter- 
view, as  well  as  Your  Excellency's  statement  in  the 
Reichstag  on  the  29th  inst.,  that  Germany  is  ready  for 
any  peace  that  will  guarantee  her  existence  and  future, 
have  during  the  last  few  days  been  fairly  thoroughly 
discussed  in  the  New  York  papers,  which  particularly 
dwell  on  the  words  *a  peace  guaranteeing  our  existence 
and  future,'  and  agree  unanimously  as  to  the  urgent 
desirability  of  a  further  and  more  exact  formulation  of 
the  German  peace  conditions. 

"The  New  York  Times  says:  'All  depends  on  what 
guarantees  of  the  existence  and  the  future  of  Germany 
are  expected.'  The  paper  goes  on  to  ask  how  Germany 
could  imagine  her  future  assured  from  a  territorial  point 
of  view,  but  points  out  in  conclusion  that  these  are  only 
external  details,  and  concludes,  returning  to  its  favorite 
theme,  as  follows:  *  Deeper  than  all,  fundamental  in  any 
discussion  of  peace,  is  the  question  of  the  German  politi- 
cal ideals,  of  German  Machtpolitik  and  Weltpolitik,  of 
Prussian  militarism.'  .  .  .  'The  fear,  the  practical  cer- 
tainty, that  Von  Bethmann-Hollweg's  guarantees  would 
be  not  merely  guarantees  of  the  existence  and  future  of 
Germany,  but  of  new  and  not  distant  wars  with  her, 
stands  in  the  way  of  any  serious  discussion  of  his  re- 
marks. ' 

"The  Evening  Sun  remarks  sarcastically  that  obviously 
no  such  guarantees  as  Deutschland  uber  Attes  should  be 


AMERICAN  MEDIATION  347 

given  to  any  country.  Its  verdict,  too,  is  that : '  The  peace 
that  Germany  craves  still  is  a  peace  that  will  enable  her 
to  begin  the  next  war  in  five  or  ten  years,  with  a  certainty 
of  immediate  victory  and  complete  conquest  of  the  over- 
lordship  of  Europe,  if  not  America. '  The  Brooklyn  Daily 
Eagle  writes:  'If  an  inconclusive  peace,  a  peace  based 
upon  the  theory  that  the  war  is  a  draw,  a  peace  fertile 
in  the  liabilities  to  future  trouble,  is  not  in  the  mind  of 
the  German  Chancellor,  what  is  in  his  mind?  He  should 
speak  out.  He  will  never  have  a  better  opportunity  to  be 
specific.  The  whole  neutral  world  is  listening,  ready  to 
give  careful  and  intelligent  consideration  to  his  words. ' 
"More  important  than  these  and  other  utterances  of 
the  papers  which  follow  in  our  enemies'  wake  is  the 
trenchant  leading  article  of  the  World,  which  on  foreign 
questions  generally  expresses  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Administration.  This  paper  says:  'If  Germany  is  ready 
to  end  the  war,  the  first  thing  for  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment to  do  is  to  make  definite  proposals  for  peace.  Those 
proposals  need  not  be  made  officially  to  the  Allies,  to  the 
United  States,  or  any  other  intermediary.  They  could 
be  made  to  the  world  at  large.  The  Chancellor  could 
describe  to  the  Eeichstag  the  conditions  under  which  Ger- 
many would  regard  her  Existence  and  Future  assured/ 
'Germany  began  the  war.  It  is  proper  that  Germany 
should  take  the  first  steps  towards  ending  the  war,  but 
something  more  than  vague  generalizations  is  necessary. 
At  present  there  is  nothing  to  talk  about.  There  are 
no  terms,  not  even  extravagant  and  ridiculous  terms, 
that  can  be  discussed  as  a  possible  basis  of  settlement. 
Thus  far  there  has  been  no  evidence  of  good  faith  in  the 
repeated  German  professions  of  a  desire  for  peace.  In 
consequence  nobody  takes  them  seriously  until  there  is 
at  least  a  tentative  proposal  of  terms.  When  that  is 
made,  the  responsible  Ministers  of  other  belligerent  Gov- 


348        MY   THREE   YEARS  IN   AMERICA 

ernments  will  be  forced  to  meet  the  issue.  Public  opinion 
in  Great  Britain  and  France,  no  less  than  in  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary,  will  have  a  chance  to  make  itself 
heard.  When  peace  comes  it  cannot  be  merely  the  peace 
of  diplomats  and  of  Governments.  It  must  be  a  peace 
in  which  popular  sentiment  has  the  final  word,  and  pop- 
ular sentiment  has  no  means  of  expression  until  there  is 
something  tangible  to  discuss.' 

"The  general  impression  left  by  the  utterances  of  the 
American  Press  on  the  subject  of  peace  is  that  on  the 
one  hand — apart  from  a  small  number  of  influential  pa- 
pers— it  is  anxious  for  peace,  from  which  anxiety  it  is 
obvious  that  it  intends  to  pass  over  the  extravagant  war 
aims  so  often  heard  from  the  Entente  statesmen ;  but  that 
on  the  other  hand  it  cannot  as  yet  find  any  practicable 
way  of  bringing  about  an  early  conclusion  of  peace,  and 
also  that  it  cannot  see  any  advance  in  this  direction  in 
the  last  statements  of  Your  Excellency,  which  only  a  few 
papers  have  discussed  to  any  extent. 

"The  change  in  the  direction  of  the  Foreign  Office  has 
been  discussed  at  comparative  length  in  the  leading  arti- 
cles of  the  important  newspapers,  which,  as  a  rule,  deal 
with  European  Ministerial  changes  only  in  their  news 
columns — less  with  regard  to  the  personality  of  the  retir- 
ing Minister,  who  was  not  very  well  known  here,  than 
that  of  the  new  Secretary  of  State.  The  only  paper  which 
devoted  a  few  friendly  words  to  Herr  von  Jagow  was 
the  New  York  Times,  which  described  him,  in  connection 
with  his  conferences  with  Baron  Beyens  and  Sir  Edward 
Goschen  at  the  outbreak  of  war,  as  a  *  Gentleman  in  War 
and  Peace,'  and  also  recognized  his  sympathetic  attitude 
during  the  negotiations  on  the  submarine  war  contro- 
versy. Herr  Zimmermann's  appointment  as  Secretary 
of  State,  on  the  other  hand,  was  greeted  by  many  papers, 
and  indeed  by  the  Press  in  general — only  a  few  papers 


AMEEICAN  MEDIATION  349 

were  made  somewhat  uneasy  by  the  news  received  lately 
by  telegram,  of  his  attitude  towards  the  question  of 
armed  merchantmen — with  great  applause.  The  tone  of 
these  comments  must  have  been  set  by  the  flattering  and 
sympathetic  utterances  of  Ambassador  Gerard  and  the 
journalist  Swope,  on  the  subject  of  the  new  Secretary  of 
State,  and  a  longer  article  by  Gilbert  Hirsch  published 
by  the  New  York  Evening  Post  and  other  papers  under 
the  heading  *  Our  Friend  Zimmermann. '  The  note  struck 
by  this  article  and  by  the  German  Press  comments  trans- 
mitted and  printed  everywhere  over  here,  that  Herr  Zim- 
mermann is  a  particularly  warm  friend  of  the  United 
States,  was  joyfully  echoed  by  the  whole  American  Press. 
Also  the  fact  was  everywhere  emphasized  that  in  Herr. 
Zimmermann  the  important  post  of  chief  of  the  Foreign 
Office,  hitherto  reserved  for  '  Prussian  Junkerdom,'  had 
been  given  to  a  member,  not  of  the  diplomatic,  but  of  the 
humbler  consular  service,  and  indeed,  to  a  bourgeois. 
Here  and  there  speculation  was  indulged  in  as  to  whether 
this  appointment  might  not  be  interpreted  as  the  first 
step  towards  a  'Liberal  regime,'  in  which  a  not  unimpor- 
tant section  of  the  American  Press  still  sees  the  future 
salvation  of  Germany  and  of  the  world. 

"The  announcement  of  autonomy  for  Poland  is,  to  say 
the  least  of  it,  received  with  scepticism  by  the  American 
Press,  which  is  comparatively  well  informed  on  the  Po- 
lish question.  The  words  of  the  virtuoso  Paderewski,  who 
is  working  here  in  the  interests  of  the  Polish  sufferers 
through  the  war:  'This  means  only  more  suffering  for 
my  people;  it  means  that  another  army  will  be  raised, 
and  that  there  will  be  more  killing  and  more  devastat- 
ing, '  were  reproduced  by  many  newspapers  and  regarded 
as  an  authoritative  statement  of  what  might  be  expected 
from  the  German- Austrian  proclamations.  Many  papers 
declared  it  to  be  simply  a  move  to  raise  more  recruits. 


350        MY  THREE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

Others  sarcastically  pointed  out  that  the  proclamation 
left  the  most  vital  questions,  such  as  the  boundaries  of 
the  new  State  and  its  form  of  government,  to  be  settled 
later.  Only  a  few  of  the  leading  newspapers,  among 
them  the  New  York  Evening  Post  and  the  Philadelphia 
North  American,  allowed  the  Allied  Governments  a  cer- 
tain modicum  of  recognition,  for,  as  they  pointed  out,  in 
no  case  could  the  heavy  hand  of  Russia,  which  had  so 
long  oppressed  the  country,  be  forgotten.  The  Polish 
Press  here  was  at  first  very  reserved.  Their  point  of 
view  is  represented  by  the  following  leading  article  of 
the  weekly  paper  Free  Poland,  founded  since  the  war  and 
published  by  the  Polish  National  Council  of  America: 
'What  the  Poles  desire  is  an  independent  Poland.  The 
Powers  have  acknowledged  Poland's  right  to  live,  but 
either  with  a  limitation  of  independence  or  diminution 
of  territory.  The  Russians  would  fain  lop  off  eastern 
Galicia.  And  now  the  Germans  grant  Poland  an  auton- 
omy, but  without  Posen,  West  Prussia,  or  Silesia,  in  re- 
turn demanding  a  Polish  army  to  take  up  their  cause 
against  Russia.  Though  this  move  on  the  part  of  Ger- 
many will  at  least  draw  the  world's  attention  to  the  in- 
alienable rights  of  Poland  as  a  nation,  and  make  of  the 
Polish  question  an  international  one,  yet  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  Poles  in  Europe  will  vehemently  pro- 
test against  any  curtailment  of  their  national  aims  and 
aspirations. 

"The  impression,  on  the  whole  unfavorable,  made  by 
the  Polish  measures  on  the  American  Press  was  gradually 
in  part  balanced  by  the  announcement  that  the  Polish 
Jews  had  been  recognized  as  an  independent  religious 
community.  Since  it  was  thought  in  many  quarters  that 
this  might  be  taken  to  be  the  first  step  towards  cultural 
and  political  emancipation  of  the  Eastern  Jews,  it  was 
discussed  with  great  interest,  in  view  of  the  strong  influ- 


AMERICAN   MEDIATION  351 

ence  exerted  by  the  American  Jewish  community  on  an 
important  section  of  the  American  Press,  particularly 
that  of  New  York. 

"Finally,  there  remains  to  be  examined  the  attitude  of 
the  Press  towards  one  question,  in  itself  of  a  purely  do- 
mestic, economic  interest,  but  which  promises  to  become 
of  the  most  wide-reaching  importance  for  foreign  poli- 
tics, namely,  that  of  an  embargo  on  corn.  The  price  of 
most  articles  of  food  has  risen  to  such  an  abnormal 
height  during  the  last  few  months  that  the  New  York  Sun 
can  say  without  too  great  exaggeration,  that  if  the  war 
had  lasted  two  more  years  the  cost  of  living  in  Berlin 
and  Vienna  would  have  risen  to  the  level  of  that  of  New 
York.  In  particular  the  serious  position  of  the  wheat 
market  and  the  fairly  certain  prospect  of  an  acute  rise  in 
the  price  of  wheat  in  the  course  of  the  winter  or  next 
spring  prompt  the  Press  to  constant  discussion,  the  bur- 
den of  which  is  the  question  whether  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  should  or  should  not  prohibit  the  ex- 
portation of  corn.  The  opponents  of  such  a  measure, 
among  which  are  the  World,  New  York  Times,  New  York 
Evening  Post,  Journal  of  Commerce,  the  Boston  Evening 
Transcript,  the  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger,  the  Saint 
Louis  Globe-Democrat,  the  Pittsburg  Post,  the  Saint  Paul 
Pioneer  Press,  the  Indianapolis  News  and  many  others, 
maintain  that  the  supporters  of  the  embargo,  whose  main 
object  is  to  injure  the  Allies,  represent  the  situation  as 
much  more  threatening  than  it  is  in  reality.  The  World 
tries  to  console  its  readers  by  explaining  that  the  high 
price  of  food  represents  the  American  people 's  contribu- 
tion to  the  cost  of  the  greatest  war  of  destruction  in  the 
history  of  the  world;  while  the  New  York  Times  points 
out  the  danger  of  estranging  the  Allies  through  an  em- 
bargo. The  newspapers  which  are  friendly  to  Germany, 
particularly  the  Hearst  newspapers,  and  the  Milwaukee 


352        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

Free  Press,  energetically  urge  an  embargo  on  all  articles 
of  food,  by  which,  as  they  more  or  less  openly  allow  it  to 
appear,  England  would  be  forced  to  make  peace.  But  in 
addition  a  number  of  the  most  bitter  opponents  of  Ger- 
many, for  example  the  Philadelphia  Inquirer,  favor  an 
early  embargo  for  purely  material  reasons.  It  is  to  be 
expected  that  this  question  will  be  one  of  the  first  to  come 
up  at  the  opening  of  the  approaching  session  of  Congress, 
when  the  Press  polemics  of  the  opponents  of  the  embargo, 
with  the  arriere  pensee  of  protecting  England  *s  interests 
and  those  of  her  Allies,  should  reach  their  climax." 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE   RUPTURE   OF   DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS 

BEFORE  I  received  official  notice  of  the  opening  of 
the  unrestricted  U-boat  campaign,  I  had  a  further  inter- 
view with  Mr.  House,  concerning  the  peace  activities  of 
the  President,  and  the  telegram  describing  it  which  I  sent 
to  the  Foreign  Office,  Berlin,  is  reproduced  below: 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM  No.  212 
"(Answer  to  Telegram  No.  149  of  the  7th  January.) 

"Washington,  January  16th,  1917. 
"Your  Excellency's  authority  in  regard  to  Mr.  House 
duly  availed  of.  He  told  me  Wilson  considered  this  pro- 
nouncement of  Imperial  Government  supremely  valuable. 
As  regards  further  developments  of  Wilson 's  efforts  for 
peace,  I  can  say  nothing  definite.  This  much  only  is  cer- 
tain, that  at  present  moment  President  has  no  other 
thought  than  that  of  bringing  about  peace,  and  will  en- 
deavor to  achieve  this  end  with  the  utmost  energy  and 
all  means  in  his  power.  A  further  pronouncement  of 
Wilson's  is  expected  almost  immediately;  it  will  proba- 
bly take  form  of  a  communication  to  Congress.  Appar- 
ently it  will  consist  of  an  appeal  to  the  American  people 
to  help  him  to  enforce  peace;  in  any  case  both  he  and 
House  praise  the  Hearst  Press  article,  which  is  written 
from  that  point  of  view.  Whether  means  adopted  will 
be  to  place  an  embargo  on  all  exports  is  difficult  to  say. 

853 


354        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

Maybe  the  threat  of  an  embargo  will  be  enough  to  force 
our  enemies  to  a  conference. 

"From  the  above  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  afford  to 
have  any  difficulties  over  the  old  U-boat  question.  As 
regards  the  question  of  armed  merchant  vessels,  I  hope 
to  arrive  at  a  modus  vivendi.  But  we  must  be  careful 
not  to  act  hastily  and  carelessly,  so  as  not  to  create  con- 
flict before  President  has  taken  further  steps.  Remark- 
able as  this  may  sound  to  German  ears,  Wilson  is  re- 
garded here  very  generally  as  pro-German.  His  Note  was 
traced  to  our  influence,  and  Gerard  *s  speech  strength- 
ened this  impression.  This  speech  is  in  accordance  with 
instructions  which  Mr.  Gerard  is  receiving.  Our  present 
enemies  have  gone  literally  raving  mad,  and  leave  no 
stone  unturned  in  order  to  put  obstacles  in  Wilson's  way. 
This  explains  the  attacks  against  the  President,  as  also 
the  scurrilous  attempt  engineered  by  the  Republicans  to 
charge  the  Administration  with  Stock  Exchange  specu- 
lations. Without  any  justification,  of  course,  my  name 
also  was  mentioned  in  this  regard.  The  German  Em- 
bassy, as  is  well  known,  is  held  responsible  for  everything 
by  our  enemies  in  this  country." 

At  the  same  time  as  the  above  telegram,  I  wrote  the 
following  report  describing  the  prevailing  political  atti- 
tude in  Washington: 

CIPHER  REPORT 

"Washington,  14th  January,  1917. 

"Ever  since  the  Presidential  election  the  political  sit- 
uation here  has  not  changed.  Apart  from  the  question 
of  ending  the  world-war,  the  public  mind  has  not  been 
constantly  or  earnestly  concerned  with  any  matter. 

"Congress  has  dealt  with  the  customary  Budget  pro- 


RUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS    355 

posals,  and  the  fruitless  negotiations  about  the  Mexican 
question  drag  slowly  on. 

"Meanwhile,  the  attitude  towards  ourselves,  which 
after  the  Sussex  incident  took  a  decided  turn  for  the  good, 
has  slowly  improved.  This  change  in  the  public  temper 
can  be  observed  on  all  sides.  It  is  true  that  it  is  only 
very  slightly  noticeable,  if  at  all,  in  the  Press,  and  our 
most  rabid  opponents  are  driven,  owing  to  the  general 
improvement  in  German- Americans'  relations,  to  ever 
more  violent  attacks  against  us.  Since  President  Wilson 
dispatched  his  Peace  Note,  our  enemies'  fury  knows  no 
bounds.  Without  exaggeration,  it  can  be  said  that  this 
note  voices  the  spirit  of  almost  the  whole  American 
people. 

"Only  Wall  Street  and  the  anti-German  ring,  as  also 
their  friends  in  the  press,  are  dissatisfied  and  are  en- 
deavoring to  put  obstacles  in  the  President's  way.  In 
these  circles,  which  are  always  under  English  influence, 
the  belief  has  taken  root,  that  Mr.  Wilson  has  fallen 
under  German  spell.  The  well-known  anti-German  Re- 
publican, Senator  Lodge,  boldly  expressed  this  view  in 
the  Senate;  but  he  could  not  prevent  the  Senate  from 
voting  in  favor  of  Mr.  Wilson's  Peace  Note,  by  a  huge 
majority. 

"The  public  mind  is  engaged  principally  with  the  ques- 
tion why  precisely  the  President  dispatched  his  note 
immediately  after  the  German  offer  of  peace.  It  is  well- 
known  that  this  Note  had  been  prepared  for  some  time, 
and  would  have  been  sent  off  at  Christmas,  quite  irre- 
spective of  our  own  proposals,  although,  in  view  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  inclination  to  temporize,  and  to  treat  all  ques- 
tions somewhat  dilatorily,  this  is  by  no  means  certain.  I 
believe  that  the  President's  principal  motive  was  his 
pressing  desire  to  play  the  role  of  mediator — a  prospect 
which  seemed  to  be  imperilled  if  our  enemies  agreed  to 


356       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

deal  directly  with  us.  This  may  possibly  explain  why 
that  particular  moment  was  chosen,  for  which  our 
enemies  regard  Mr.  Wilson  so  unfavorably.  A  cartoon 
published  by  that  most  anti-German  paper,  the  New  York 
Herald,  depicts  Mr.  Wilson's  dove  of  peace  as  a  parrot, 
faithfully  babbling  out  the  German  proposals. 

"Apart  from  the  choice  of  this  particular  moment  for 
its  expression,  the  President's  desire  to  bring  about 
peace  is  in  any  case  very  comprehensible,  seeing  that  he 
was  re-elected  principally  on  the  basis  of  this  programme. 
Furthermore,  the  Americans  are  genuinely  alarmed  by 
the  extension  of  Japanese  power  in  the  Far  East,  and 
finally,  since  our  Rumanian  victories,  Mr.  Wilson  has 
ultimately  come  to  the  conclusion  that  our  enemies  are 
no  longer  able  to  defeat  us.  One  is  constantly  hearing 
the  opinion  expressed,  both  by  members  of  the  Cabinet 
and  other  friends  of  the  President,  who  enjoy  his  con- 
fidence, that  neither  of  the  belligerent  parties  will  now 
be  able  to  achieve  a  decisive  victory,  and  that  further 
bloodshed  is  therefore  useless. 

"As  already  stated  above,  the  anti-German  party  is 
doing  its  utmost  to  put  every  possible  obstacle  in  Mr. 
Wilson's  way,  while  the  Press  does  not  cease  from  re- 
peating that  the  Peace  Note  is  to  be  regarded  as  a 
menace  against  Germany.  It  is  thus  hoped  to  stiffen  our 
enemies'  backs,  by  dazzling  them  with  the  expectation  of 
America's  entry  into  the  war;  much,  too,  is  made  of  the 
argument — and  this  was  particularly  so  in  the  Senate — 
that  Mr.  Wilson's  intervention  was  imperilling  the  tra- 
ditional policy  of  the  United  States,  which  rests  primarily 
upon  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  upon  the  principle  of 
non-interference  with  European  affairs.  Finally,  a  scur- 
rilous attempt  has  been  made  by  the  Republican  party  to 
attack  Wilson  in  the  flank,  by  getting  a  notorious  Stock 
Exchange  speculator  publicly  to  proclaim  that  members 


of  the  Administration,  who  knew  beforehand  of  Wilson's 
action,  had  taken  advantage  to  speculate  heavily  upon  it. 
As  this  man  could,  however,  produce  no  proofs,  he  simply 
made  himself  ridiculous. 

"I  have  already  frequently  called  attention  in  my 
report  to  the  fact  that  the  prolonged  war  hysteria  over 
here  has  created  an  atmosphere  of  gossip  and  tittle-tattle, 
which  at  other  times  would  have  been  regarded  as  im- 
possible. For  instance,  even  quite  responsible  people 
believe  that  I  have  obtained  for  cash  certain  compromis- 
ing letters  of  Wilson's  in  order  to  be  able  to  get  a  hold 
over  him  by  this  means.  Senator  Lodge,  in  his  own 
house,  privately  expressed  the  view  that  this  was  a 
credible  rumor,  and  then  turned  it  to  account  in  the 
Senate.  The  President  is  so  terribly  put  out  by  this  and 
other  similar  machinations  on  the  part  of  the  Eepubli- 
cans,  who  refuse  to  grant  him  the  fame  of  the  peace- 
maker, that  he  recently  kept  away  from  a  public  festival, 
because  Mr.  Lodge  was  to  be  the  principal  speaker  there. 

"  Owing  to  the  incredible  rumors  which  are  bandied 
from  mouth  to  mouth  here,  I  regarded  it  as  necessary 
to  bring  an  action  against  one  notorious  swindler  and 
blackmailer.  I  wanted  to  convince  public  opinion  that 
the  Embassy  had  nothing  to  fear.  I  intend  doing  the 
same  thing  in  the  case  of  all  future  attempts  at  black- 
mail, once  we  have  got  a  clean  slate  in  regard  to  all 
compromising  questions.  Our  enemies  will,  however, 
persist  in  leaving  no  stone  unturned  in  order  to  cast  a 
slur  upon  the  Embassy,  for  their  principal  object  is  to 
succeed  in  bringing  about  my  recall,  or  the  rupture  of 
diplomatic  relations  with  Germany.  Once  they  have  ac- 
complished this,  they  are  convinced  that  it  will  be  an 
easy  matter  to  draw  the  United  States  into  the  war. 

"As  is  well  known,  President  Wilson  received  a  reply 
from  the  Entente,  in  response  to  his  peace  move,  which 


358        MY   THREE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

contained  conditions  utterly  unacceptable  to  us.  Messrs. 
Wilson  and  House  regarded  these  conditions  as  'bluff,' 
and  were  as  convinced,  as  they  had  previously  been,  that 
the  Entente  would  accede  to  a  peace  by  arrangement. 
People  frequently  alluded  in  those  days  to  the  fact  that 
in  the  last  Anglo-American  War  of  1812-1814,  the  Eng- 
lish, very  shortly  before  the  peace  settlement,  had  pro- 
posed unacceptable  peace  terms  which  they  suddenly 
allowed  to  drop  later.  I  also  believed,  and  believe  still, 
that  the  Entente  were  perfectly  well  acquainted  with  the 
political  situation  in  Germany,  and  wished  by  proposing 
such  conditions  to  strike  panic  amongst  us  and  compel 
us  to  declare  an  unrestricted  U-boat  war.  The  Entente 
never  diverged  from  its  one  object,  which  was  to  draw 
the  United  States  into  the  war,  and  thus  to  bring  about 
a  decision.  Moreover,  the  negative  reply  sent  to  our 
Government  by  the  Entente  had  sufficed  to  achieve  this 
object ;  for  the  final  resolution  to  declare  an  unrestricted 
U-boat  war  was  formed  before  the  peace  conditions 
framed  by  the  Entente  became  known  in  Berlin. " 

On  the  19th  of  January  I  received  official  notice  that 
the  unrestricted  U-boat  campaign  would  begin  on  Feb- 
ruary 1st,  and  I  was  to  give  the  American  Government 
notice  accordingly  on  the  evening  of  the  31st  January. 
After  all  that  had  happened,  I  could  but  regard  this  in- 
timation as  a  declaration  of  war  against  the  United 
States,  and  one  which,  in  addition,  put  us  in  the  wrong ; 
because  it  put  an  end  to  the  peace  overtures  made  by  Mr. 
Wilson,  which  had  been  started  with  our  approval.  I 
did  my  utmost  to  try  to  get  the  Berlin  resolution  can- 
celled, or  at  least  to  obtain  a  postponement  of  the  date  on 
which  it  was  to  come  into  force,  and  with  this  end  in  view 
I  sent  the  following  telegram  to  Berlin : 


CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Washington,  19th  January,  1917. 

"War  inevitable  in  view  of  the  proposed  action. 
Danger  of  rupture  could  be  mitigated  by  the  fixing  of  a 
definite  interval  of  time,  say  one  month,  so  that  neutral 
vessels  and  passengers  may  be  spared,  as  any  prelim- 
inary and  timely  warning  seems  impossible  if  present 
programme  is  carried  out.  I  shall  have  to  give  the  pass- 
word for  unnavigable  German  steamers  on  February  1st, 
as  effect  of  carrying  out  of  my  instructions  here  will  be 
like  declaration  of  war,  and  strict  guard  will  be  kept.  In 
any  case  an  incident  like  that  of  the  Lusitama  may  be 
expected  soon. 

"If  military  reasons  are  not  absolutely  imperative,  in 
view  of  my  Telegram  212,  postponement  most  urgently 
desirable.  Wilson  believes  he  can  obtain  peace  on  the 
basis  of  our  proposed  equal  rights  of  all  nations.  House 
told  me  again  yesterday,  that  Wilson  proposed  to  take 
action  very  shortly,  for  in  view  of  our  declaration  re- 
garding future  Peace  League,  etc.,  he  regards  prospects 
of  a  Peace  Conference  as  favorable. " 

In  my  efforts  to  avoid  a  breach  with  the  United  States, 
the  President  helped  me  to  the  extent  of  making  a  com- 
munication to  the  Senate  on  January  22nd,  which  he 
personally  read  to  them  in  solemn  session.  In  this 
communication,  Mr.  Wilson  exhaustively  developed  his 
programme  of  a  "Peace  without  Conquest. "  As  the 
President  officially  communicated  this  proposal  to  all  the 
belligerent  Powers  on  the  same  day,  it  was  to  be  regarded 
as  a  fresh  and  most  solemn  step  towards  peace.  As,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  is  also  a  document  which  expresses 
most  plainly  Mr.  Wilson's  desires  and  intentions  before 
his  entry  into  the  war,  I  quote  it  verbatim  below.  Those 


360        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

who  read  it  to-day  cannot  help  feeling  that  certainly  no 
more  scathing  criticism  of  the  Versailles  Peace  has  ever 
been  written, — a  peace  which  contained  all  the  signs  of 
having  been  imposed  upon  the  vanquished,  and  against 
which  the  President's  communication  was  a  warning. 

"On  the  eighteenth  of  December  last  I  addressed  an 
identical  note  to  the  governments  of  the  nations  now  at 
war  requesting  them  to  state,  more  definitely  than  they 
had  yet  been  stated  by  either  group  of  belligerents,  the 
terms  upon  which  they  would  deem  it  possible  to  make 
peace.  I  spoke  on  behalf  of  humanity  and  of  the  rights  of 
all  neutral  nations  like  our  own,  many  of  whose  most  vital 
interests  the  war  puts  in  constant  jeopardy.  The  Central 
Powers  united  in  a  reply  which  stated  merely  that  they 
were  ready  to  meet  their  antagonists  in  conference  to 
discuss  terms  of  peace.  The  Entente  Powers  have  re- 
plied much  more  definitely  and  have  stated,  in  general 
terms,  indeed,  but  with  sufficient  definiteness  to  imply 
details,  the  arrangements,  guarantees,  and  acts  of  re- 
paration which  they  deem  to  be  the  indispensable  condi- 
tions of  a  satisfactory  settlement.  We  are  that  much 
nearer  a  definite  discussion  of  the  peace  which  shall  end 
the  present  war.  We  are  that  much  nearer  the  discussion 
of  the  international  concert  which  must  thereafter  hold 
the  world  at  peace.  In  every  discussion  of  the  peace  that 
must  end  this  war  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  that  peace 
must  be  followed  by  some  definite  concert  of  power  which 
will  make  it  virtually  impossible  that  any  such  catas- 
trophe should  ever  overwhelm  us  again.  Every  lover  of 
mankind,  every  sane  and  thoughtful  man  must  take  that 
for  granted. 

"I  have  sought  this  opportunity  to  address  you  be- 
cause I  thought  that  I  owed  it  to  you,  as  the  council 
associated  with  me  in  the  final  determination  of  our 


RUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS    361 

international  obligations,  to  disclose  to  you  without  re- 
serve the  thought  and  purpose  that  have  been  taking  form 
in  my  mind  in  regard  to  the  duty  of  our  Government  in 
the  days  to  come  when  it  will  be  necessary  to  lay  afresh 
and  upon  a  new  plan  the  foundations  of  peace  among  the 
nations. 

"It  is  inconceivable  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States  should  play  no  part  in  that  great  enterprise.  To 
take  part  in  such  a  service  will  be  the  opportunity  for 
which  they  have  sought  to  prepare  themselves  by  the 
very  principles  and  purposes  of  their  polity  and  the  ap- 
proved practices  of  their  Government  ever  since  the  days 
when  they  set  up  a  new  nation  in  the  high  and  honorable 
hope  that  it  might  in  all  that  it  was  and  did  show  man- 
kind the  way  to  liberty.  They  cannot  in  honor  withhold 
the  service  to  which  they  are  now  about  to  be  challenged. 
They  do  not  wish  to  withhold  it.  But  they  owe  it  to 
themselves  and  to  the  other  nations  of  the  world  to  state 
the  conditions  under  which  they  will  feel  free  to  render  it. 

"That  service  is  nothing  less  than  this,  to  add  their 
authority  and  their  power  to  the  authority  and  force  of 
other  nations  to  guarantee  peace  and  justice  throughout 
the  world.  Such  a  settlement  cannot  now  be  long  post- 
poned. It  is  right  that  before  it  comes  this  Government 
should  frankly  formulate  the  conditions  upon  which  it 
would  feel  justified  in  asking  our  people  to  approve  its 
formal  and  solemn  adherence  to  a  League  for  Peace.  I 
am  here  to  attempt  to  state  those  conditions. 

"The  present  war  must  first  be  ended ;  but  we  owe  it  to 
candor  and  to  a  just  regard  for  the  opinion  of  mankind 
to  say  that,  so  far  as  our  participation  in  guarantees  of 
future  peace  is  concerned,  it  makes  a  great  deal  of  differ- 
ence in  what  way  and  upon  what  terms  it  is  ended.  The 
treaties  and  agreements  which  bring  it  to  an  end  must 
embody  terms  which  will  create  a  peace  that  is  worth 


362       MY   THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

guaranteeing  and  preserving,  a  peace  that  will  win  the 
approval  of  mankind,  not  merely  a  peace  that  will  serve 
the  several  interests  and  immediate  aims  of  the  nations 
engaged.  We  shall  have  no  voice  in  determining  what 
those  terms  shall  be,  but  we  shall,  I  feel  sure,  have  a 
voice  in  determining  whether  they  shall  be  made  lasting 
or  not  by  the  guarantees  of  a  universal  covenant;  and 
our  judgment  upon  what  is  fundamental  and  essential  as 
a  condition  precedent  to  permanency  should  be  spoken 
now,  not  afterwards  when  it  may  be  too  late. 

"No  covenant  of  co-operative  peace  that  does  not  in- 
clude the  peoples  of  the  New  World  can  suffice  to  keep  the 
future  safe  against  war ;  and  yet  there  is  only  one  sort  of 
peace  that  the  peoples  of  America  could  join  in  guaran- 
teeing. The  elements  of  that  peace  must  be  elements  that 
engage  the  confidence  and  satisfy  the  principles  of  the 
American  governments,  elements  consistent  with  their 
political  faith  and  with  the  practical  convictions  which 
the  peoples  of  America  have  once  for  all  embraced  and 
undertake  to  defend. 

"I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  any  American  government 
would  throw  any  obstacle  in  the  way  of  any  terms  of 
peace  the  governments  now  at  war  might  agree  upon,  or 
seek  to  upset  them  when  made,  whatever  they  might  be. 
I  only  take  it  for  granted  that  mere  terms  of  peace  be- 
tween the  belligerents  will  not  satisfy  even  the  belliger- 
ents themselves.  Mere  agreements  may  not  make  peace 
secure.  It  will  be  absolutely  necessary  that  a  force  be 
created  as  a  guarantor  of  the  permanency  of  the  settle- 
ment so  much  greater  than  the  force  of  any  nation  now 
engaged  or  any  alliance  hitherto  formed  or  projected 
that  no  nation,  no  probable  combination  of  nations  could 
face  or  withstand  it.  If  the  peace  presently  to  be  made 
is  to  endure,  it  must  be  a  peace  made  secure  by  the  or- 
ganized major  force  of  mankind. 


RUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS    363 

"The  terms  of  the  immediate  peace  agreed  npoti  will 
determine  whether  it  is  a  peace  for  which  such  a  guar- 
antee can  be  secured.  The  question  upon  which  the  whole 
future  peace  and  policy  of  the  world  depends  is  this :  Is 
the  present  war  a  struggle  for  a  just  and  secure  peace,  or 
only  for  a  new  balance  of  power?  If  it  be  only  a  struggle 
for  a  new  balance  of  power,  who  will  guarantee,  who  can 
guarantee,  the  stable  equilibrium  of  the  new  arrange- 
ment? Only  a  tranquil  Europe  can  be  a  stable  Europe. 
There  must  be,  not  a  balance  of  power,  but  a  community 
of  power ;  not  organized  rivalries,  but  an  organized  com- 
mon peace. 

"Fortunately  we  have  received  very  explicit  assur- 
ances on  this  point.  The  statesmen  of  both  of  the  groups 
of  nations  now  arrayed  against  one  another  have  said,  in 
terms  that  could  not  be  misinterpreted,  that  it  was  no 
part  of  the  purpose  they  had  in  mind  to  crush  their 
antagonists.  But  the  implications  of  these  assurances 
may  not  be  equally  clear  to  all, — may  not  be  the  same  on 
both  sides  of  the  water.  I  think  it  will  be  serviceable  if 
I  attempt  to  set  forth  what  we  understand  them  to  be. 

"They  imply,  first  of  all,  that  it  must  be  a  peace  with- 
out victory.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  say  this.  I  beg  that  I 
may  be  permitted  to  put  my  own  interpretation  upon  it 
and  that  it  may  be  understood  that  no  other  interpreta- 
tion was  in  my  thought.  I  am  seeking  only  to  face 
realities  and  to  face  them  without  soft  concealments. 
Victory  would  mean  peace  forced  upon  the  loser,  a  vic- 
tor's terms  imposed  upon  the  vanquished.  It  would  be 
accepted  in  humiliation,  under  duress,  at  an  intolerable 
sacrifice,  and  would  leave  a  sting,  a  resentment,  a  bitter 
memory  upon  which  terms  of  peace  would  rest,  not  per- 
manently, but  only  as  upon  quicksand.  Only  a  peace 
between  equals  can  last.  Only  a  peace  the  very  principle 
of  which  is  equality  and  a  common  participation  in  a 


364       MY  THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

common  benefit.  The  right  state  of  mind,  the  right  feel- 
ing between  nations,  is  as  necessary  for  a  lasting  peace 
as  is  the  just  settlement  of  vexed  questions  of  territory 
or  of  racial  and  national  allegiance. 

"The  equality  of  nations  upon  which  peace  must  be 
founded  if  it  is  to  last  must  be  an  equality  of  rights ;  the 
guarantees  exchanged  must  neither  recognize  nor  imply 
a  difference  between  big  nations  and  small,  between  those 
that  are  powerful  and  those  that  are  weak.  Eight  must 
be  based  upon  the  common  strength,  not  upon  the  in- 
dividual strength,  of  the  nations  upon  whose  concert 
peace  will  depend.  Equality  of  territory  or  of  resources 
there  of  course  cannot  be ;  nor  any  other  sort  of  equality 
not  gained  in  the  ordinary  peaceful  and  legitimate  de- 
velopment of  the  peoples  themselves.  But  no  one  asks 
or  expects  anything  more  than  an  equality  of  rights. 
Mankind  is  looking  now  for  freedom  of  life,  not  for 
equipoises  of  power. 

"And  there  is  a  deeper  thing  involved  than  even 
equality  of  right  among  organized  nations.  No  peace 
can  last,  or  ought  to  last,  which  does  not  recognize  and 
accept  the  principle  that  governments  derive  all  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  that  no 
right  anywhere  exists  to  hand  peoples  about  from  sov- 
ereignty to  sovereignty  as  if  they  were  property.  I  take 
it  for  granted,  for  instance,  if  I  may  venture  upon  a 
single  example,  that  statesmen  everywhere  are  agreed 
that  there  should  be  a  united,  independent,  and  auton- 
omous Poland,  and  that  henceforth  inviolable  security 
of  life,  of  worship,  and  of  industrial  and  social  develop- 
ment should  be  guaranteed  to  all  peoples  who  have  lived 
hitherto  under  the  power  of  governments  devoted  to  a 
faith  and  purpose  hostile  to  their  own. 

"I  speak  of  this,  not  because  of  any  desire  to  exalt  an 
abstract  political  principle  which  has  always  been  held 


EUPTUEE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   EELATIONS    365 

very  dear  by  those  who  have  sought  to  build  up  liberty  in 
America,  but  for  the  same  reason  that  I  have  spoken  of 
the  other  conditions  of  peace  which  seem  to  me  clearly 
indispensable, — because  I  wish  frankly  to  uncover  reali- 
ties. Any  peace  which  does  not  recognize  and  accept  this 
principle  will  inevitably  be  upset.  It  will  not  rest  upon 
the  affections  or  the  convictions  of  mankind.  The  fer- 
ment of  spirit  of  whole  populations  will  fight  subtly  and 
constantly  against  it,  and  all  the  world  will  sympathize. 
The  world  can  be  at  peace  only  if  its  life  is  stable,  and 
there  can  be  no  stability  where  the  will  is  in  rebellion, 
where  there  is  not  tranquillity  of  spirit  and  a  sense  of 
justice,  of  freedom,  and  of  right. 

"So  far  as  practicable,  moreover,  every  great  people 
now  struggling  towards  a  full  development  of  its  re- 
sources and  of  its  powers  should  be  assured  a  direct  out- 
let to  the  great  highways  of  the  sea.  Where  this  cannot 
be  done  by  the  cession  of  territory,  it  can  no  doubt  be 
done  by  the  neutralization  of  direct  rights  of  way  under 
the  general  guarantee  which  will  assure  the  peace  itself. 
With  a  right  comity  of  arrangement  no  nation  need  be 
shut  away  from  a  free  access  to  the  open  paths  of  the 
world's  commerce. 

"And  the  paths  of  the  sea  must  alike  in  law  and  in  fact 
be  free.  The  freedom  of  the  seas  is  the  sine  qua  non  of 
peace,  equality,  and  co-operation.  No  doubt  a  somewhat 
radical  reconsideration  of  many  of  the  rules  of  inter- 
national practice  hitherto  thought  to  be  established  may 
be  necessary  in  order  to  make  the  seas  indeed  free  and 
common  in  practically  all  circumstances  for  the  use  of 
mankind,  but  the  motive  for  such  changes  is  convincing 
and  compelling.  There  can  be  no  trust  or  intimacy  be- 
tween the  peoples  of  the  world  without  them.  The  free, 
constant,  unthreatened  intercourse  of  nations  is  an  essen- 
tial part  of  the  process  of  peace  and  of  development.  It 


366       MY  THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

need  not  be  difficult  either  to  define  or  to  secure  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas  if  the  governments  of  the  world  sincerely 
desire  to  come  to  an  agreement  concerning  it. 

"It  is  a  problem  closely  connected  with  the  limitation 
of  naval  armaments  and  the  co-operation  of  the  navies  of 
the  world  in  keeping  the  seas  at  once  free  and  safe.  And 
the  question  of  limiting  naval  armaments  opens  the  wider 
and  perhaps  more  difficult  question  of  the  limitation  of 
armies  and  of  all  programmes  of  military  preparation. 
Difficult  and  delicate  as  these  questions  are,  they  must  be 
faced  with  the  utmost  candor  and  decided  in  a  spirit  of 
real  accommodation  if  peace  is  to  come  with  healing  in  its 
wings,  and  come  to  stay.  Peace  cannot  be  had  without 
concession  and  sacrifice.  There  can  be  no  sense  of  safety 
and  equality  among  the  nations  if  great  preponderating 
armaments  are  henceforth  to  continue  here  and  there  to 
be  built  up  and  maintained.  The  statesmen  of  the  world 
must  plan  for  peace  and  nations  must  adjust  and  accom- 
modate their  policy  to  it  as  they  have  planned  for  war 
and  made  ready  for  pitiless  contest  and  rivalry.  The 
question  of  armaments,  whether  on  land  or  sea,  is  the 
most  immediately  and  intensely  practical  question 
connected  with  the  future  fortunes  of  nations  and  of 
mankind. 

"I  have  spoken  upon  these  great  matters  without  re- 
"serve  and  with  the  utmost  explicitness  because  it  has 
seemed  to  me  to  be  necessary  if  the  world's  yearning 
desire  for  peace  was  anywhere  to  find  free  voice 
and  utterance.  Perhaps  I  am  the  only  person  in  high 
authority  amongst  all  the  peoples  of  the  world  who  is  at 
liberty  to  speak  and  hold  nothing  back.  I  am  speaking 
as  an  individual,  and  yet  I  am  speaking  also,  of  course, 
as  the  responsible  head  of  a  great  government,  and  I  feel 
confident  that  I  have  said  what  the  people  of  the  United 
States  would  wish  me  to  say.  May  I  not  add  that  I  hope 


EUPTUEE   OF  DIPLOMATIC  EELATIONS    367 

and  believe  that  I  am  in  effect  speaking  for  liberals  and 
friends  of  humanity  in  every  nation  and  of  every  pro- 
gramme of  liberty?  I  would  fain  believe  that  I  am  speak- 
ing for  the  silent  mass  of  mankind  everywhere  who  have 
as  yet  had  no  place  or  opportunity  to  speak  their  real 
hearts  out  concerning  the  death  and  ruin  they  see  to  have 
come  already  upon  the  persons  and  the  homes  they  hold 
most  dear. 

"And  in  holding  out  the  expectation  that  the  people 
and  Government  of  the  United  States  will  join  the  other 
civilized  nations  of  the  world  in  guaranteeing  the  perma- 
nence of  peace  upon  such  terms  as  I  have  named  I  speak 
with  the  greater  boldness  and  confidence  because  it  is 
clear  to  every  man  who  can  think  that  there  is  in  this 
promise  no  breach  in  either  our  traditions  or  our  policy 
as  a  nation,  but  a  fulfilment,  rather,  of  all  that  we  have 
professed  or  striven  for. 

"I  am  proposing,  as  it  were,  that  the  nations  should 
with  one  accord  adopt  the  doctrine  of  President  Monroe 
as  the  doctrine  of  the  world :  that  no  nation  should  seek 
to  extend  its  polity  over  any  other  nation  or  people,  but 
that  every  people  should  be  left  free  to  determine  its  own 
polity,  its  own  way  of  development,  unhindered,  un- 
threatened,  unafraid,  the  little  along  with  the  great  and 
powerful. 

"I  am  proposing  that  all  nations  henceforth  avoid 
entangling  alliances  which  would  draw  them  into  com- 
petitions of  power,  catch  them  in  a  net  of  intrigue  and 
selfish  rivalry,  and  disturb  their  own  affairs  with  in- 
fluences intruded  from  without.  There  is  no  entangling 
alliance  in  a  concert  of  power.  When  all  unite  to  act  in 
the  same  sense  and  with  the  same  purpose  all  act  in  the 
common  interest  and  are  free  to  live  their  own  lives  under 
a  common  protection. 

"I  am  proposing  government  by  the  consent  of  the 


368       MY   THREE   YEARS  IN  AMEEICA 

governed ;  that  freedom  of  the  seas  which  in  international 
conference  after  conference  representatives  of  the  United 
States  have  urged  with  the  eloquence  of  those  who  are  the 
convinced  disciples  of  liberty;  and  that  moderation  of 
armaments  which  makes  of  armies  and  navies  a  power 
for  order  merely,  not  an  instrument  of  aggression  or  of 
selfish  violence. 

"These  are  American  principles,  American  policies. 
We  could  stand  for  no  others.  And  they  are  also  the 
principles  and  policies  of  forward  looking  men  and 
women  everywhere,  of  every  modern  nation,  of  every 
enlightened  community.  They  are  the  principles  of 
mankind  and  must  prevail." 

In  Helfferich's  account  of  these  matters,  the  author 
charges  this  appeal  of  Mr.  Wilson's  with  having  favored 
the  Entente  side,  because  in  it  the  conditions  laid  down 
are  regarded  as  an  acceptable  basis  for  peace.  When  I 
returned  to  Germany  the  Imperial  Chancellor  advanced 
the  same  argument  in  my  presence ;  I  have  heard  it  re- 
peated again  and  again  at  home,  and  among  other  places, 
before  the  Examination  Committee  of  the  National 
Assembly.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  view  is  rather  a 
Berlin  fable  convenue.  There  is  no  word  in  the  docu- 
ment which  would  justify  one  in  drawing  such  a  conclu- 
sion. The  President  stated  simply  that  he  had  invited 
both  belligerent  parties  to  define  the  conditions  under 
which  they  would  make  peace,  and  that  the  Entente  had 
replied  fully  to  the  invitation,  whereas  the  Central 
Powers  had  not  submitted  their  terms.  He  then  pro- 
ceeded to  say  that  in  so  far  as  the  conditions  insisted 
upon  by  one  side  had  become  known,  we  had  advanced  a 
step  nearer  to  the  discussion  of  peace.  If  we  read  the 
wording  of  the  document  without  prejudice,  and  in  con- 
nection with  the  views  expressed  by  American  statesmen, 


EUPTUEE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   EELATIONS    369 

it  becomes  abundantly  clear  that  the  President  regarded 
the  terms  laid  down  by  our  enemies  as  maximum  condi- 
tions, and  further,  that  he  believed  that  we  also  would 
submit  our  maximum  terms,  and  finally  come  to  an  agree- 
ment by  adopting  a  middle  course. 

Herr  Helfferich  makes  a  similar  charge  against  Wil- 
son's Note  of  the  18th  December,  owing  to  the  threats 
that  it  contained.  But  this  charge  strikes  me  as  being 
just  as  gratuitous  as  the  first.  The  threats  were  uttered 
in  London  quite  as  plainly  as  they  were  in  Berlin.  The 
charge  of  partiality  would  have  been  justified  only  if  the 
threats  had  been  contained  simply  in  the  version  of  the 
Note  which  was  sent  to  Berlin. 

Besides,  in  all  Entente  countries,  it  was  maintained 
that  both  the  Note  of  the  18th  December  and  the  appeal 
of  the  22nd  January  revealed  partiality  for  the  Central 
Powers.  The  diplomats  of  the  Entente  in  Washington 
were  quite  beside  themselves  with  anger,  and  plainly 
revealed  their  displeasure  to  Mr.  Wilson.  I  am  not 
concerned  now  with  criticizing  the  President's  efforts  for 
peace  in  retrospect.  The  fact  that  Mr.  Wilson  became 
our  personal  enemy  after  the  31st  January,  1917,  and 
that  he  consented  to  the  Peace  of  Versailles,  is  no  proof 
of  the  contention  that,  before  the  31st  January,  1917,  he 
would  have  proved  a  similar  failure  as  a  peacemaker. 
The  President's  spiteful  censure  and  treatment  of  us, 
both  during  the  war  and  at  Versailles,  may  be  explained 
psychologically,  by  the  fact  that  we  rejected  his  efforts 
as  a  mediator,  and  declared  the  U-boat  war. 

Mr.  Wilson's  personal  sensitiveness  and  egocentric 
nature  played  an  essential  part  in  all  the  negotiations. 
When  the  French  and  English  Press  derided  the  Presi- 
dent, in  November,  1916,  after  the  first  cables  had 
announced  the  election  of  Mr.  Hughes,  Mr.  Wilson  was 
deeply  mortified.  A  further  improvement  in  his  attitude 


370       MY   THEEE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

towards  us  followed,  when  we  showed  that  we  were  favor- 
ably disposed  to  his  mediation  for  peace.  The  fact  that 
Germany  relied  on  him,  stimulated  his  self-esteem  to  such 
an  extent  that  he  became,  to  a  certain  degree,  interested 
in  bringing  about*  a  peace  that  would  be  satisfactory  to 
Germany.  Nor  should  the  interest  he  showed  in  this 
matter  be  underrated.  I  openly  confess  that  it  was  also 
my  ambition  to  assist  in  restoring  peace,  in  order  to  save 
our  country  from  the  catastrophe  that  threatened  to 
overtake  it,  and  to  spare  the  world  any  further  suffering. 
To  this  day  I  am  still  convinced  that,  had  the  Germans 
skilfully  conducted  their  share  in  these  peace  negotia- 
tions, we  should  have  achieved  all  we  wanted  to  achieve. 
The  happy  personal  relations  which,  in  that  case,  would 
have  prevailed  between  Mr.  Wilson  and  the  German 
representatives  at  the  Peace  Conference,  would,  in  view 
of  the  element  of  chance,  which  is  so  conspicuous  at  such 
congresses,  have  turned  the  scales  in  our  favor  to  a  sur- 
prising extent.  On  the  other  hand,  I  was,  and  am  still, 
of  the  opinion  that  the  peace  which  would  have  been 
settled  at  that  time,  would  not  have  satisfied  the  public 
opinion  of  the  moment  in  Germany.  But  I  attached  no 
importance  whatever  to  this  consideration.  He  who  prac- 
tises politics  in  the  interests  of  his  native  country,  must 
be  ready  at  any  moment  to  plunge  like  Curtius  into  the 
abyss,  in  order  to  save  his  nation.  This,  however,  is  what 
made  Curtius  immortal.  Besides,  in  a  few  years,  if  not 
sooner,  the  German  people  would  surely  have  realized 
that  "Peace  without  Victory"  constituted  a  victory  for 
Germany. 

After  the  31st  January,  1917,  Mr.  Wilson  was  incapable 
of  an  impartial  attitude  towards  Germany.  He  saw  red 
whenever  he  thought  of  the  Imperial  Government,  and 
his  repugnance  against  it  knew  no  bounds.  Even  to-day 
the  bitter  feeling  still  rankles  within  him,  that  the  Ger- 


KUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS    371 

man  Government  deprived  him  of  the  glory  of  being  the 
premier  political  personage  on  the  world's  stage.  It  goes 
without  saying,  that  at  Versailles  the  Entente  exploited 
with  a  vengeance  both  this  attitude  on  the  part  of  the 
President,  and  his  peculiar  idiosyncrasies.  Intercepted 
wireless  messages  from  Paris  had  made  us  aware  of 
the  fact  that  the  original  American  interpretation  of  the 
fourteen  points  entirely  agreed  with  our  own;  and  thus 
we  in  Berlin  were  filled,  not  without  reason,  with  certain 
hopes  of  America's  help.  But  Mr.  Wilson,  who  would 
have  acted  more  wisely  had  he  never  gone  to  Versailles, 
sat  there  alone,  facing  three  European  statesmen,  for 
whom  he  was  no  match.  They  played  upon  his  weakest 
point,  by  suggesting  to  him  the  view  that,  in  addition  to 
the  German  Government,  the  German  people,  who  were 
guilty,  too,  should  also  be  punished,  and  that  the  obliga- 
tion to  punish  the  guilty  took  precedence  of  the  fourteen 
points.  Had  Mr.  "Wilson,  after  January,  1917,  really 
come  to  the  definite  conclusion  that  he  held  the  proofs  of 
Germany's  war  guilt  and  lust  of  world  empire!  Whereas, 
theretofore  he  had  considered  the  question  of  war  guilt 
impartially,  he  now  agreed  that  the  Germans  would  have 
been  able  to  obtain  a  reasonable  peace  through  his  media- 
tion, but  had  rejected  it  and  chosen  to  declare  the  U-boat 
war  instead,  in  order  to  achieve  a  complete  victory.  Con- 
sequently, the  Germans  had  not  been  concerned  all  this 
time  with  bringing  about  a  reasonable  peace,  but  with 
gaining  the  empire  of  the  world,  a  conclusion  from  which 
their  war  guilt  was  also  to  be  inferred.  It  was  as  the 
result  of  these  ideas  that  Mr.  Wilson  preached  the  cru- 
sade against  militaristic  and  autocratic  Germany,  who 
wanted  to  achieve  the  mastery  of  the  world.  Only  by 
means  of  the  belief  in  a  crusade  could  the  peace-loving 
American  people  be  prevailed  upon  to  wage  war. 
Regarding  the  effect  upon  the  Senate  of  the  Presi- 


372       MY  THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

dent's  appeal,  I  sent  the  following  telegram  to  the 
Foreign  Office : 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Washington,  January  23rd,  1917. 

"Wilson's  appeal  has  met  with  general  approval  in 
Senate,  and  is  regarded  as  a  further  energetic  step  in 
peace  movement.  Only  our  wildest  opponents  have  again 
attacked  President  as  a  pro-German.  Almost  throughout 
views  expressed  about  appeal  contain  the  wish  that 
Central  Powers  will  also  state  their  peace  terms  now. 
House  also  begged  me  urgently  that  this  might  be  done, 
either  publicly  or  secretly.  Then  Wilson  would  imme- 
diately propose  Peace  Conference ;  President  also  seems 
inclined  to  conclude  the  Bryan  Treaty  with  us.  Time  is 
now,  alas,  too  short,  otherwise  treaty  might  perhaps  have 
helped  us  to  avert  war. 

"As  result  of  proposed  unrestricted  U-boat  war,  peace 
movement  will  presumably  come  to  an  end.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  possible  on  the  other  hand  that  Wilson  will 
make  redoubled  efforts  for  peace,  if  a  time-limit  be  al- 
lowed. I  should  like  to  leave  no  stone  unturned  in  order 
to  avert  war  with  United  States.  As  I  understand  the 
situation,  our  refusal  to  submit  our  peace  terms  arises 
out  of  the  fear  that  they  may  appear  too  moderate  to 
public  opinion  in  Germany.  Would  it  perhaps  be  pos- 
sible, before  opening  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war,  to 
state  the  peace  terms,  which  we  should  have  submitted 
at  the  Peace  Conference  we  proposed,  and  to  add,  that, 
in  view  of  our  enemies'  indolent  rejection  of  our  scheme, 
we  could  no  longer  abide  by  these  moderate  terms  ?  And 
then  we  might  hint  that,  as  victors,  we  should  demand 
an  independent  Ireland.  A  declaration  of  this  sort  would 
win  over  public  opinion  on  this  side,  as  far  as  this  is 


RUPTURE   OF   DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS    373 

possible,  and  might  perhaps  also  satisfy  public  opinion 
in  Germany." 

The  day  after  the  President  had  read  his  appeal  to  the 
Senate,  I  received  a  telegram  inviting  me  to  visit  Mr. 
House  in  New  York.  During  the  interview  the  Colonel 
read  me  a  memorandum  of  Mr.  Wilson's,  in  which  the 
President  formally  offered  us  to  act  as  mediator,  in  order 
to  bring  about  a  peace  by  arrangement.  The  memoran- 
dum left  me  in  no  doubt  whatever  that  Mr.  Wilson  was 
certain  of  being  able  to  achieve  this  end.  With  the  utmost 
possible  speed  I  sent  the  following  telegrams  about  my 
interview  with  Mr.  House,  by  three  different  routes  to 
Berlin,  on  the  assumption  that  it  was  impossible  for  us 
to  abide  by  our  former  resolve : 

(1)  CIPHER  WIRELESS  TELEGRAM 

(Most  urgent) 

"Washington,  27th  January,  1917. 
"After  having  had  very  important  conference  request 
most  urgently  postponement  till  my  next  two  messages 
received.    Suggest  reply  by  wireless." 

(2)  CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Washington,  26th  January,  1917. 

"Wilson  offered  officially,  but  in  first  place  privately, 
to  mediate  for  peace,  on  basis  of  his  appeal  to  Senate, 
that  means  without  interference  with  territorial  terms  of 
peace.  Wilson's  simultaneous  request  for  communica- 
tion of  our  peace  terms  not  to  be  regarded  as  private. 

"I  am  wiring  with  full  particulars  through  State 
Department.  To  begin  U-boat  war  without  previous 
negotiations  regarding  above  proposals  would  among 
other  things  put  us  seriously  in  the  wrong,  and  owing  to 


374       MY   THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

Wilson 's  personal  sensitiveness,  would  make  prevention 
of  rupture  quitejmpossible." 

(3)  CIPHER. TELEGRAM 

"Washington,  27th  January,  1917. 
"House  suddenly  invited  me  to  visit  him  on  behalf  of 
Wilson,  and  told  me  the  following  as  an  official  message 
from  President : 

"First  of  all,  Wilson  offers  privately  to  mediate  for 
peace  on  basis  of  his  appeal  to  Senate,  i.e.,  therefore 
without  interference  in  territorial  terms  of  peace.  Wil- 
son's simultaneous  request  to  us  to  submit  our  terms  of 
peace  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  private.  House  revealed  to 
me  following  thoughts  of  the  President.  Our  enemies 
had  openly  expressed  their  impossible  peace  terms. 
Thereupon  President  had,  as  a  direct  contrast  to  these, 
developed  his  programme.  Now  we  are  also  morally 
bound  to  make  our  peace  terms  known,  because  our  desire 
for  peace  would  otherwise  appear  insincere.  After  Your 
Excellency  had  informed  Mr.  Wilson  that  our  peace 
terms  were  moderate,  and  that  we  agreed  to  second 
Peace  Conference,  President  thought  he  had  given  ex- 
pression to  our  wishes  in  his  appeal  to  the  Senate. 

"Wilson  hopes  that  we  shall  communicate  our  peace 
terms  to  him,  which  might  he  published  both  in  Germany 
and  over  here,  so  that  they  could  become  known  imme- 
diately all  over  the  world.  If  only  we  had  confidence  in 
him,  President  was  convinced  that  he  would  be  able  to 
bring  about  both  Peace  Conferences.  He  would  be  par- 
ticularly pleased  if  Your  Excellency  were  at  the  same 
time  to  declare  that  we  are  prepared  to  enter  the  second 
Peace  Conference  on  the  basis  of  his  appeal.  Our  declar- 
ation might  be  shown  to  have  been  actuated  by  Wilson's 
having  sent  us  a  direct  request  for  our  peace  terms. 


EUPTUBE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   EELATIONS    375 

President  is  of  opinion  that  Note  sent  to  him  by  the 
Entente  was  a  piece  of  bluff  which  need  not  be  taken 
seriously.  He  hopes  definitely  to  bring  about  Peace  Con- 
ferences, and  quickly  too,  so  that  the  unnecessary  blood- 
shed of  the  Spring  Offensive  may  be  averted. 

"To  what  extent  Your  Excellency  will  and  can  meet 
Wilson,  it  is  impossible  to  tell  from  this  side.  Meanwhile 
I  urgently  beg  leave  to  submit  the  following  remarks  for 
your  consideration.  If  the  U-boat  campaign  is  opened 
now  without  any  further  ado,  the  President  will  regard 
this  as  a  smack  in  the  face,  and  war  with  the  United 
States  will  be  inevitable.  The  war  party  here  will  gain 
the  upper  hand,  and  the  end  of  the  war  will  be  quite  out 
of  sight,  as,  whatever  people  may  say  to  the  contrary,  the 
resources  of  the  United  States  are  enormous.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  we  acquiesce  in  Wilson's  proposal,  but  the 
scheme  nevertheless  comes  to  grief  owing  to  the  stub- 
bornness of  our  enemies,  it  would  be  very  hard  for  the 
President  to  come  into  the  war  against  us,  even  if  by  that 
time  we  began  our  unrestricted  U-boat  war.  At  present, 
therefore  it  is  only  a  matter  of  postponing  the  declara- 
tion for  a  little  while  so  that  we  may  improve  our  diplo- 
matic position.  For  my  own  part,  I  confess  that  I  am  of 
opinion  that  we  shall  obtain  a  better  peace  now  by  means 
of  conferences,  than  we  should  if  the  United  States  joined 
the  ranks  of  our  enemies. 

"As  cables  always  take  several  days,  please  send  in- 
structions by  wireless,  in  case  telegraphic  privileges  157 
cannot  be  used  on  February  1st." 

I  had  hoped  that  the  communication  of  the  President's 
appeal  through  Mr.  Gerard,  would  have  led  to  a  post- 
ponement of  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war.  This,  however, 
was  not  the  case.  I  can  pass  over  all  that  happened  in 
Berlin  at  that  time,  and  all  the  deliberations  which  led  to 


376       MY   THREE  YEAKS  IN  AMERICA 

the  ultimate  decision,  for  not  only  did  I  not  take  part  in 
them,  but  they  have  also  become  general  knowledge  since 
the  taking  of  the  evidence  before  the  Examination  Com- 
mittee of  the  National  Assembly.  I  need  only  mention 
here  that  I  received  the  following  reply  to  my  proposals, 
from  the  Imperial  Chancellor:- 

CIPHER  TELEGRAM 

"Berlin,  29th  January,- 1917. 

"Please  thank  President  on  behalf  of  Imperial  Govern- 
ment for  his  communication.  We  trust  him  completely, 
and  beg*  him  to  trust  us  likewise.  Germany  is  ready  to 
accept  his  secret  offer-  of  mediation  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  about  a  direct  Conference  of  the  belligerents, 
and  will  recommend,  similar  course  to  her  Allies.  "We 
wish  our  acceptance  of  offer,  as  well  as  offer  itself,  to  be 
treated  as  quite  secret. 

"A  public  announcement  of  our  peace  terms  is  at 
present  impossible,  now  that  Entente  has  published  their 
peace  terms  which  aim  at  the  degradation  and  annihila- 
tion of  Germany  and  her  Allies,  and  have  been  character- 
ized by  President  himself  as  impossible.  We  cannot 
regard  them  as  bluff,  as  they  entirely  agree  with  pro- 
fessed opinions  of  enemy  Powers  expressed  not  only 
before,  but  afterwards.  They  also  correspond  exactly 
with  the  objects  for  which  Italy  and  Rumania  entered 
the  war,  and  as  regards  Turkey,  with  the  assurances  made 
on  behalf  of  Russia  by  both  England  and  France.  So 
long  as  these  war  aims  of  our  enemies  are  publicly  main- 
tained, it  would  be  impossible  to  interpret  public  an- 
nouncement of  our  own  peace  terms,  as  anything  else 
than  a  sign  of  weakness  which  at  present  does  not  exist, 
and  would  only  lead  to  a  prolongation  of  the  war.  In 
order  to  give  President  Wilson  a  proof  of  our  confi- 
dence, however,  tell  him  just  for  his  own  private  inf or- 


RUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   RELATIONS    377 

mation  the  terms  on  which  we  should  have  been  prepared 
to  take  part  in  peace  negotiations,  if  the  Entente  had 
accepted  our  offer  of  peace  on  the  12th  December,  1916. 

"The  restitution  to  France  of  that  part  of  Upper 
Alsace  occupied  by  her.  The  acquisition  of  a  strategical 
and  economic  safety-frontier-zone,  separating  Germany 
and  Poland  from  Russia. 

"Colonial  restitution  in  the  form  of  an  understanding 
which  would  secure  Germany  colonial  possessions  com- 
patible with  the  size  of  her  population  and  the  importance 
of  her  economic  interests. 

"Restoration  of  those  parts  of  France  occupied  by 
Germany,  on  condition  that  certain  strategic  and  eco- 
nomic modifications  of  the  frontier  be  allowed,  as  also 
financial  compensation. 

"Restitution  of  Belgium  under  definite  guarantees  for 
the  safety  of  Germany,  which  would  have  to  be  deter- 
mined by  means  of  negotiations  with  the  Belgian 
Government. 

"Economic  and  financial  settlement,  on  the  basis  of 
exchange,  of  the  territory  invaded  by  both  sides,  and  to 
be  restituted  by  the  conclusion  of  peace. 

"Compensation  for  German  undertakings  and  private 
persons  who  have  suffered  damage  through  the  war. 

"Renunciation  of  all  economic  arrangements  and 
measures,  which  after  the  peace  would  constitute  an 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  normal  commerce  and  trade,  with 
the  conclusion  of  corresponding  commercial  treaties. 

"The  Freedom  of  the  Seas  to  be  placed  on  a  secure 
basis. 

"The  peace  terms  of  our  Allies  coincide  with  our  own 
views,  and  observe  the  same  limits. 

"We  are,  moreover,  prepared  to  enter  the  Interna- 
tional Conference  which  he  wishes  to  invoke  after  the 
war,  on  the  basis  of  his  communication  to  the  Senate. 


378        MY   THREE   YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

"Your  Excellency  will  give  President  these  details  at 
the  same  time  as  you  hand  him  Note  relating  unrestricted 
U-boat  war,  and  will  inform  him  as  follows : 

"If  his  offer  had  only  reached  us  a  few  days  earlier, 
we  should  have  been  able  to  postpone  opening  of  the  new 
U-boat  war.  Now,  however,  in  spite  of  best  will  in  the 
world,  it  is,  owing  to  technical  reasons,  unfortunately  too 
late,  as  far-reaching  military  preparations  have  already 
been  made  which  cannot  be  undone,  and  U-boats  have 
already  sailed  with  new  instructions.  Form  and  content 
of  enemy  *s  reply  to  our  offer  of  peace,  and  the  Note  of 
the  President,  were  so  abrupt  and  harsh,  that,  in  view 
of  the  life  and  death  struggle  which  has  once  again  been 
proclaimed  against  us,  we  cannot  any  longer  delay  the 
use  of  those  means  which  appear  to  us  best  calculated  to 
end  the  war  quickly,  and  for  the  relinquishment  of  which 
we  could  not  have  taken  the  responsibility  in  the  face  of 
our  whole  nation. 

"As  the  order  regarding  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war 
shows,  we  are  prepared,  at  any  moment,  to  make  every 
possible  allowances  for  America's  needs.  We  would  beg 
the  President  to  prosecute — that  is  to  say,  pursue,  his 
plan  notwithstanding,  and  declare  ourselves  ready  to 
discontinue  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war  the  moment  we 
are  completely  assured  that  the  President's  efforts  will 
lead  to  a  peace  that  would  be  acceptable  to  us. 

*  *  BETHMANN-HOLLWEG.  " 

I  immediately  communicated  the  peace  terms  contained 
in  this  telegram  to  Mr.  House,  and  I  still  cherished  a 
small  hope  that  he  would,  after  all,  perhaps,  be  able  to 
exercise  a  favorable  influence  over  the  President.  Truth 
to  tell,  he  actually  went  to  Washington  in  order  to  take 
part  in  the  deliberations  which  were  to  decide  the  atti- 
tude which.  America  was  henceforth  to  adopt  towards  us. 


RUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS    379 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  the  secrecy  covering  the  com- 
munication of  our  peace  terms  deprived  them  of  all 
diplomatic  value,  the  simultaneous  declaration  of  the 
unrestricted  U-boat  war  gave  the  death-blow  to  all  hope 
of  maintaining  peace.  As  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg 
declared  before  the  Examination  Committee  of  the 
National  Assembly:  "It  was  perfectly  clear  to  the 
authorities  in  Germany,  that  the  decision  to  prosecute 
the  unrestricted  U-boat  war  would  destroy  all  chance  of 
further  efforts  on  the  part  of  ttie  President  to  bring 
about  peace.  The  U-boat  war  meant  rupture,  and  ulti- 
mately war  with  America.  The  discussions  between 
General  Head  Quarters  and  the  Political  Leaders  had 
turned  upon  this  question  for  years.  That  which  led  to 
the  decisive  step  being  taken  was,  that  General  Head- 
quarters was  firmly  resolved  to  face  even  the  risk  of 
America's  entry  into  the  war,  and  that  it  wished  to  use 
the  circumstances  as  a  trial  of  strength  with  the  political 
leaders." 

On  January  31st,  at  5  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  I 
handed  Mr.  Lansing  the  official  communication  about  the 
U-boat  war.  This  was  my  last  political  interview  in 
America.  We  both  knew  that  the  end  had  come,  but  we 
did  not  admit  the  fact  to  each  other.  The  Secretary  of 
State  contented  himself  with  replying  that  he  would  sub- 
mit my  communication  to  the  President.  I  cherished  no 
illusions  regarding  the  expected  outcome  of  this  inter- 
view, for  the  Ultimatum  of  April  18th,  1916,  no  longer 
allowed  of  any  chance  of  preventing  the  rupture  of  diplo- 
matic relations.  Consequently  on  the  morning  of  the 
31st  January,  I  had  already  given  the  order  that  the 
engines  of  all  ships  lying  in  American  harbors  were  to  be 
destroyed.  I  had  already  been  given  instructions  to  this 
effect  at  the  time  of  the  Sussex  crisis,  and  these  instruc- 
tions had  now  been  repeated  from  Berlin.  As  a  matter 


380       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

of  fact  it  was  dangerous  to  allow  of  any  delay,  for  on 
the  evening  of  January  31st  our  ships  were  already 
seized  by  the  American  police.  As  far  as  I  know,  how- 
ever, all  of  them  without  exception  were  made  unfit  for 
use  before  this  occurred. 

On  the  3rd  February,  at  twelve  midday,  Mr.  Wilson 
announced  to  a  joint  meeting  of  both  Houses  of  Congress, 
the  rupture  of  all  diplomatic  relations  with  Germany, 
and  at  the  same  time  my  pass  was  brought  to  me  by  a 
higher  official  of  the  Department  of  State. 

Thus  war  was  decided  upon,  even  if  it  was  not  imme- 
diately declared.  Everything  that  followed  amounted 
only  to  preparation  for  war  or  war  propaganda.  Nothing 
except  the  abandonment  of  the  U-boat  campaign  could 
have  prevented  war. 

It  has  frequently  been  asserted  that  the  notorious 
Mexico  telegram  led  to  the  war  with  the  United  States. 
I  do  not  believe  this  is  correct.  The  telegram  was  used 
with  great  success  as  propaganda  against  us;  but  the 
rupture  of  diplomatic  relations — as  I  have  already 
pointed  out — was,  in  view  of  the  situation,  equivalent  in 
all  circumstances  to  war.  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Mexico  telegram,  which  took  me  completely  by  surprise. 
It  was  addressed,  in  the  usual  way,  direct  to  the  legation 
in  Mexico,  and  passed  through  the  Embassy  at  Washing- 
ton on  the  same  day  on  which  I  received  the  notification 
that  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war  was  to  be  declared.  I 
had  neither  the  right,  nor  was  it  my  duty,  to  hold  up  the 
telegram,  although  I  disapproved  of  its  contents.  But 
even  if  I  had  held  it  up,  I  should  have  served  no  useful 
purpose.  As  I  afterwards  heard  from  a  certain  English- 
man, there  was  an  office  in  England  which  deciphered  all 
the  telegrams  which  we  sent  over  the  English  cable,  and 
this  office  placed  all  their  intercepts  at  the  disposal  of  the 
American  Government  after  the  rupture  of  diplomatic 


relations.  There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this,  for  we 
also  deciphered  all  enemy  telegrams  which  we  were  able 
to  intercept.  Nowadays  there  is  no  cipher  which  is  abso- 
lutely safe,  if  it  has  been  in  use  for  some  time.  At  that 
time,  however,  I  did  not  know  that  all  our  cipher  tele- 
grams were  being  read  by  the  English.  If,  therefore,  I 
had  held  up  the  Mexico  telegram  in  Washington,  its  con- 
tents would  have  been  revealed  to  the  American  Govern- 
ment by  the  English,  notwithstanding,  and  no  one  would 
have  believed  that  the  message  had  not  been  forwarded 
in  some  way  to  Mexico.  Moreover  the  telegram,  as  is 
well-known,  was  only  conditional;  the  instructions  it 
contained  were  only  to  hold  good  if  the  United  States 
came  into  the  war.  I  strained  every  nerve,  at  that 
moment,  to  prevent  this  from  taking  place.  If  I  had  been 
successful,  the  Mexico  telegram  would  have  served  no 
purpose.  I  am  therefore  able  to  say,  with  a  clean  con- 
science, that  I  did  everything  that  stood  in  my  power, 
to  remedy  the  error  committed  in  the  dispatch  of  the 
telegram. 

In  Helfferich's  account  of  these  events,  the  author 
says: 

"If  Count  Bernstorff  was,  and  apparently  is  still,  of 
the  opinion,  that  Wilson  was  actually  engaged  in  trying 
to  bring  about  a  peace  which  would  have  been  acceptable 
and  tolerable  to  us,  and  with  a  promise  of  success,  this 
can  only  be  explained  as  the  result  of  the  enduring  effect 
of  suggestion,  which,  acting  upon  him  for  two  years,  had 
had  no  really  adequate  knowledge  of  home  opinion  to 
counteract  it.  As  the  communication  between  Berlin  and 
the  German  Embassy  in  Washington  was  completely  cut 
off,  it  is  not  surprising  that  our  representatives  on  the 
other  side  of  the  vast  ocean  should  have  lost  touch  with 
their  fellow-countrymen  struggling  for  their  lives,  and 


382       MY  THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

should  have  failed  to  retain  the  proper  standpoint  in 
regard  to  what  was  either  necessary  or  tolerable." 

To  this  I  should  like  to  reply,  in  the  first  place,  that 
the  unrestricted  U-boat  war  did  not  in  the  least  bring 
the  German  people  either  what  was  necessary  or  toler- 
able. Furthermore,  not  only  I  myself,  but  almost  all 
those  gentlemen  who  returned  with  me  to  Germany,  had 
the  feeling,  on  reaching  home,  that  we  in  America  had 
formed  a  much  clearer  notion  of  the  true  state  of  Ger- 
many, than  those  of  our  fellow-countrymen  who  had  been 
living  at  home ;  for  they  had  been  completely  cut  off  from 
the  world  by  the  Blockade.  After  we  had  seen  the  con- 
ditions prevailing  in  Germany,  we  could  understand  even 
less  than  we  had  before,  why  the  Imperial  Government 
had  not  snatched  with  joy  at  the  chance  of  making  peace. 

As  to  the  question  whether  we  should  have  obtained  an 
acceptable  and  tolerable  peace  through  Mr.  Wilson's 
efforts,  I  am  still  firmly  convinced  to-day,  that  this  would 
have  been  the  case.  The  President  would  not  have  of- 
fered to  mediate  if  he  had  not  been  able  to  reckon  with 
certainty  upon  success,  and  he  was  better  situated  than 
any  German,  to  know  the  attitude  of  the  Entente.  In  his 
farewell  letter  to  me,  Mr.  House  wrote : 

"It  is  too  sad  that  your  Government  should  have 
declared  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war  at  a  moment  when 
we  were  so  near  to  peace.  The  day  will  come  when  people 
in  Germany  will  see  how  much  you  have  done  for  your 
country  in  America." 

Moreover,  later  on,  Mr.  Bonar  Law  publicly  admitted 
in  the  English  Parliament  that  Great  Britain  would  have 
collapsed  financially,  if  American  help  had  not  saved  her. 
The  war-spirit  in  France,  during  the  year  1917,  was 
simply  upheld  by  the  hope  of  American  help,  and  finally, 


EUPTUEE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   EELATIONS    383 

in  March,  the  Eussian  Eevolution  broke  out.  If  we  had 
accepted  Wilson 's  mediation,  the  whole  of  American  in- 
fluence in  Eussia  would  have  been  exercised  in  favor  of 
peace,  and  not,  as  events  ultimately  proved,  against 
ourselves.  Out  of  Wilson 's  and  Kerensky's  Peace  pro- 
gramme, we  might,  by  means  of  diplomatic  negotiations, 
easily  have  achieved  all  that  we  regarded  as  necessary. 
My  conviction  that  we  could  in  the  year  1917  have  ob- 
tained a  peace  which  would  have  been  acceptable  to 
ourselves,  is  based  not  so  much  on  Wilson's  good  will,  as 
upon  the  fact  that,  without  American  help,  the  Entente 
could  not  possibly  have  achieved  a  victory. 

Against  this  view,  the  argument  is  advanced  that  the 
United  States  would  in  any  case  have  entered  the  war, 
in  order  to  avoid  a  German  victory.  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  that  according  to  my  view,  no  "  German 
Peace"  was  any  longer  possible  after  the  first  battle  of 
the  Marne.  Besides,  it  was  precisely  the  object  of  the 
policy  which  was  {directed  at  American  mediation,  to 
prevent  the  United  States  from  entering  the  war. 

At  the  present  time,  even  Mr.  Wilson  himself  is  pro- 
duced as  crown-witness  in  support  of  the  view  that 
America  would  have  entered  the  war  against  us  whatever 
might  have  happened.  In  the  discussions  about  the  Peace 
Treaty,  which  the  President  held  in  the  White  House  on 
the  19th  August,  1919,  much  stress  is  laid  upon  a  certain 
passage  in  particular,  which  gives  the  impression  that 
Mr.  Wilson  would  have  wished  America  to  enter  the  war, 
even  if  Germany  had  not  declared  the  unrestricted  U-boat 
campaign.  Almost  without  exception,  all  the  German 
national  newspapers  interpreted  the  short  dialogue  in 
question  between  the  President  and  Senator  McCumber 
in  this  way,  and  the  Deutsche  Tageszeitimg  even  went  so 
far  as  to  regard  it  as  a  striking  proof  of  what  they  called 
Wilson's  "a  priori  resolve  to  have  war  with  Germany." 


384       MY   THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

I  must  most  emphatically  reject  this  interpretation  of 
the  passage  under  discussion,  which  was  turned  to 
account  by  some  papers  in  America  in  the  political 
fight. 

In  the  first  place  I  should  like  to  point  out  that  it  is 
obviously  inadmissible  to  take  the  above-mentioned  pas- 
sage out  of  the  context,  and  to  regard  it  in  itself  as  an 
interchange  of  Views  between  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Mc- 
Cumber.  It  ought,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  judged  in 
conjunction  with  the  passage  that  precedes  it. 

The  proposition  for  discussion  was  the  President's 
motion  that  the  League  of  Nations  made  it  obligatory 
upon  all  States  united,  under  it,  to  take  common  action 
against  any  country  guilty  of  a  breach  of  international 
law.  Senator  Harding,  one  of  the  keenest  opponents  of 
the  League  of  Nations,  suggested  the  idea  in  the  debate 
that  it  was  impossible  for  a  sovereign  State  like  the 
United  States  of  America  to  have  her  moral  obligation 
in  any  international  conflict  dictated  to  her  by  an  external 
body  consisting  of  the  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
Driven  into  a  corner,  Mr.  Wilson  had  to  acknowledge  this 
fact;  but  he  emphasized  the  point  that  in  spite  of  this 
the  value  of  the  League  of  Nations  was  in  no  way  im- 
paired. He  said: 

"The  American  Republic  is  not  in  need  of  any  advice 
from  any  quarter,  in  order  to  fulfil  her  moral  duty ;  but 
she  stabilizes  the  whole  world  by  promising  in  advance 
that  she  will  stand  by  other  nations  who  regard  matters 
in  the  same  light  as  herself,  in  order  to  uphold  Justice 
in  the  world." 

Following  upon  this,  Senator  McCumber  then  tried  to 
confute  the  President's  theory,  by  applying  it  practically 
to  the  most  recent  events  in  the  world's  history.  He 


RUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS    385 

referred  to  the  last  war,  at  the  outbreak  of  which  there 
was  no  League  of  Nations  in  existence,  and  the  following 
discussion  took  place : 

McCumber:  Would  our  moral  conviction  of  the  in- 
justice of  the  German  war  have  drawn  us  into  this  war, 
if  Germany  had  been  guilty  of  no  aggressive  acts,  and, 
what  is  more,  without  the  League  of  Nations,  for  of 
course  we  had  no  League  of  Nations  then? 

Wilson:  As  things  turned  out,  I  hope  that  it  would 
finally  have  done  so,  Mr.  Senator. 

McCumber:  Do  you  believe  that,  if  Germany  had 
been  guilty  of  no  act  of  injustice  against  our  own  citizens, 
we  should  have  come  into  this  war  I 

Wilson:   I  believe  it. 

McCumber:  You  believe  that  we  should  have  come 
in  whatever  happened! 

Wilson:    Yes. 

It  is  abundantly  clear  that  with  his  first  answer,  "as 
things  turned  out,  I  hope  that  it" — that  is  to  say, 
America's  moral  conviction  of  the  injustice  of  the  Ger- 
man war — "would  finally  have  drawn  us  into  the  war" — 
the  President  lays  the  emphasis  on  the  words  "as  things 
turned  out."  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  meant  to  say: 
"As  things  turned  out  in  regard  to  his  efforts  for  peace," 
the  first  ready  concurrence  of  the  Imperial  Government^ 
notwithstanding,  was  thwarted  at  the  decisive  moment. 
With  such  a  Government,  Mr.  Wilson  seems  to  imply, 
it  was  impossible  in  the  long  run  for  America  to  remain 
on  terms  of  peace.  From  that  time  henceforward — there 
can  be  no  question  of  any  earlier  period,  because  up  to 
that  moment  he  had  been  in  constant  negotiation  with  us 
— he  regarded  the  Imperial  Government  as  morally  con- 
demned. Then,  however,  he  calls  to  mind  very  clearly 


the  feeble  war-spirit  of  the  American  people  in  the  spring 
of  1917,  which,  as  is  well  known,  had  to  be  whipped  into 
the  war  by  propaganda  on  a  prodigious  scale.  That  is 
why  the  President  says  he  " hopes,"  that  the  moral 
conviction  of  the  American  people  regarding  the  injustice 
of  Germany's  cause  would  finally  have  triumphed  over 
his  readiness  for  peace  expressed  so  brilliantly  as  late 
as  November,  1916.  His  words  are,  therefore,  to  be 
regarded  as  a  reflection  in  retrospect,  not  as  a  proof  of 
an  a  priori  intention  to  urge  the  United  States  into  the 
war  in  any  circumstances. 

Truth  to  tell,  if  Mr.  Wilson  had  really  been  striving  to 
declare  war  against  us,  he  would,  of  course,  only  have 
needed  to  nod  in  order  to  induce  his  whole  country  to 
fight  after  the  Lusitania  incident,  so  great  was  the  war 
feeling  at  that  critical  time.  Later  on,  the  President 
concentrated  all  his  efforts  upon  the  idea  of  being  the 
Peacemaker  of  the  world,  and  even  made  such  prominent 
use  of  the  motto,  "He  kept  us  out  of  the  war,"  in  the 
campaign  for  his  re-election,  that  it  is  quite  unthinkable 
that  all  this  time  he  should  have  secretly  cherished  the 
intention,  ultimately,  to  enter  the  war  against  Germany. 
In  this  matter,  the  fact  that  after  the  rupture  of  diplo- 
matic relations  between  America  and  Germany,  Mr.  Wil- 
son really  did  urge  on  the  war  by  every  means  in  his 
power,  proves  nothing.  For,  after  January  31st,  1917, 
Wilson  himself  was  a  different  man.  Our  rejection 
of  his  proposal  to  mediate,  by  our  announcement  of 
the  unrestricted  U-boat  war,  which  was  to  him  utterly 
incomprehensible,  turned  him  into  an  embittered  enemy 
of  the  Imperial  Government.  But  this  is  by  no  means  a 
proof  of  the  contention  that,  before  the  date  named,  he 
was  secretly  watching  for  an  opportunity  to  make  war 
upon  Germany.  Neither  does  it  excuse  the  President  for 
having  allowed  himself  at  Versailles  to  be  convinced  of 


BUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC  EELATIONS    387 

the  alleged  complicity  of  the  German  people  in  the  gen- 
eral war-guilt.  Theretofore  he  had  certainly  always 
differentiated  between  the  autocracy,  as  also  Militarism, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  German  people  on  the  other. 
At  Versailles  he  suddenly  advanced  the  theory  that  the 
Germans  must  be  punished  for  their  crimes,  and  not  only 
those  among  them  who  were  responsible,  but  also  the 
innocent  German  people,  who  neither  desired  the  breach 
of  Belgium's  neutrality,  nor  understood  the  moral  con- 
sequences of  the  U-boat  war,  nor  were  aware  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  mediation  for  peace. 

The  above  dialogue  is  also  interesting  from  the  stand- 
point that  the  President  is  most  clearly  convinced  that 
the  Entente  could  not  have  conquered  without  American 
help.  If  to-day  he  concludes  therefrom  that  America 
would  have  been  obliged  ultimately  to  join  in  the  war, 
in  order  to  punish  Germany,  in  former  days  he  concluded 
that  his  duty  was  to  bring  about  a  Peace  without  victory. 
If  he  had  succeeded  in  doing  this,  all  of  us,  friend  and  foe 
alike,  would  now  be  living  in  a  better  world  than  the 
present  one.  It  would  be  the  world  as  we  had  been  shown 
it  in  a  vision  of  the  future  on  the  22nd  January,  1917,  and 
not  the  world  of  the  Peace  of  Versailles,  blooming  with 
starvation,  Bolshevism  and  nationalistic  hatred. 

In  his  Memoirs,  Herr  von  Tirpitz  says  that  of  all  the 
practical  advantages  which  I  declared  would  follow  from 
a  compliant  attitude  on  our  part,  not  one  had  fallen  to 
our  lot.  But  I  must  confess,  I  was  not  aware  that  the 
U-boat  war  had  brought  us  any  advantages  either.  Its 
results  have  been  a  heavy  moral  debt  and  a  huge  bill  of 
costs  that  the  German  people  must  pay.  And  how  could 
the  policy  which  I  recommended  have  yielded  practical 
results,  seeing  that  I  was  never  able,  or  even  allowed,  to 
carry  it  through?  Never  at  any  time  was  the  U-boat  war 
really  given  up.  Every  time  a  diplomatic  success  was  in 


388       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

view,  an  incident  occurred  which  made  it  necessary  to 
start  one 's  labors  all  over  again. 

Other  people  have  said  that  as  I  was  not  in  agreement 
with  the  policy  of  the  Imperial  Government,  I  ought  to 
have  resigned  my  office.  This  view  does  not  take  into 
account  all  the  facts  of  the  case.  As  long  as  Herr  von 
Jagow  was  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  I 
worked  in  complete  harmony  with  him.  We  both  worked 
together  in  trying  to  avert  war  with  the  United  States. 
I  knew  as  little  as  Herr  von  Jagow  himself  did,  whether 
we  should  succeed  in  scoring  every  point  in  the  policy 
we  pursued,  for  the  Secretary  of  State  was  in  perpetual 
conflict  with  the  Military  and  Naval  Authorities.  If  I 
had  heard  in  time  that  Herr  von  Jagow 's  resignation  had 
occurred  in  connection  with  the  question  of  the  U-boat 
war,  and  was  the  result  of  it,  I  should  have  resigned  at 
the  same  time  as  he  did ;  because  my  name  was  identified 
with  the  idea  of  American  mediation  for  peace.  More- 
over, up  to  the  9th,  or  rather  the  19th,  January,  1917,  I 
was  completely  in  accord  with  the  Imperial  Chancellor ; 
for  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg  declared  before  the 
Examination  Committee  of  the  National  Assembly: 

"The  whole  of  my  work  in  connection  with  Wilson's 
efforts  for  peace  was,  indeed,  directed  towards  render- 
ing the  threat  of  a  U-boat  war  unnecessary,  by  bringing 
about-  a  peace  movement  which  would,  of  course,  have 
some  promise  of  proving  successful." 

These  words  amount  to  a  complete  approval  of  the 
policy  which  I  pursued  in  Washington.  When,  therefore, 
on  the  19th  January,  I  received  the  Note  informing  me 
of  the  intended,  opening  of  the  unrestricted  U-boat  cam- 
paign, I  could  not  tender  my  resignation,  for  I  regarded 
it  as  my  duty  to  the  German  people,  to  resist  until  the 


RUPTURE   OF  DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS    389 

last  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war,  and,  if  possible,  to  avert 
a  breach* with  the  United  States.  When,  on  the  31st  Jan- 
uary, 1917,  the  U-boat  policy  had  definitely  triumphed,  I 
had  no  further  chance  of  resigning  my  office,  seeing  that 
owing  to  the  immediate  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations  it 
was  lost  to  me. 

The  various  reasons,  for  and  against  Mr.  Wilson 's 
mediation,  were  all  thrashed  out  in  great  detail  in  this 
country,  before  the  Examination  Committee  of  the 
National  Assembly,  in  the  winter  of  1916-17.  And,  ac- 
cording to  the  evidence  given,  the  decisive  cause  of  the 
failure  of  the  scheme  was  the  distrust  which  the  most 
influential*  statesmen  felt  towards  the  President.  If  any 
confidence  had  been  felt  in  Mr.  Wilson,  Herr  von  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg  would  have  opposed  the  adoption  of  the 
U-boat  war,  and  would  have  allowed  the  President's 
efforts  for  mediation  to  pursue  their  course.  As  a  wit- 
ness before  the  Committee,  he  himself  said : 

"There  can  be  no  doubt,  now  that  we  can  look  back 
upon  events,  that  we  should  have  done  better  had  we 
placed  our  fate  in  President  Wilson's  hands,  and  had 
accepted  his  offers  of  mediation." 

As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  the  factor  which  in  my 
opinion  was  largely  responsible  for  determining  the 
course  we  ultimately  adopted  was  the  under-estimation 
and  ignorance  of  America  which  was  so  widespread  in 
Germany.  From  the  very  first  moment  the  problem  was 
not  properly  understood  by  the  German  nation.  The  fact 
was  overlooked  that  the  most  important  battle  of  the 
war  was  taking  place  in  Washington,  and  when  the 
tragedy  reached  its  climax,  no  one  believed  that,  with  all 
her  political,  military  and  economic  power,  the  United 
States  of  America  would  ever  enter  into  the  war. 


39Q       MY  THREE  TEARS  IN  AMERICA 

Finally,  it  has  been  pointed  out  as  an  objection  to  my 
view,  that,  after  all,  the  Entente  would  have  rejected 
Wilson's  efforts  at  mediation.  I  am  no  longer  in  a  posi- 
tion to  prove  the  contrary  to-day,  and  it  is,  of  course, 
just  possible,  that  the  President*  and  Mr.  House  were 
mistaken  in  assuming  as  much  as  they  did.  If  at  that 
time,  however,  we  expected  the  Entente  to  reject  Mr. 
Wilson's  offer  of  mediation,  we  should  at  all  events  have 
postponed  the  U-boat  war,  and  accepted  American  inter- 
vention, in  order  to  improve  our  diplomatic  position  in 
Washington,  before  having  recourse  to  the  ultima  ratio. 
It  seems  to  have  been  our  destiny  that  all  our  most  im- 
portant decisions  of  the  war  were  the  outcome  of  military 
and  not  of  political  considerations.  On  the  Entente  side, 
the  converse  was  always  true,  and  that  is  why,  though  it 
suffered  many  military  reverses,  the  Entente  won  the 
war. 

In  pursuing  the  policy  I  advocated,  I  was  influenced 
by  considerations,  which  now,  in  conclusion,  I  should  like 
to  sum  up  as  follows : 

(1)  It  was  no  longer  possible  to  achieve  a  decisive 
German  victory  after  the  first  Battle  of  the  Marne,  that 
is  why  German  policy  should  have  been  directed  towards 
obtaining  " Peace   without   Victory";   and,   as   things 
turned  out,  such  a  victory  was  only  to  be  obtained  by 
means  of  American  mediation. 

(2)  The  personality  of  Mr.  Wilson  played  no  decisive 
part  in  determining  my  attitude.    I  never  once  reckoned 
upon  his  personal  friendliness  towards  ourselves;  for  I 
knew  him  too  well  to  suppose  him  capable  of  pro-German 
tendencies.    I  expected  nothing  more  from  him  than  that 
he  would  play  America's  game — America's  and  no  other 
country's — supported  by  the  public  opinion  of  the  United 
States.    American  policy,  however,  pursued  the  object 


BUPTUEE   OF  DIPLOMATIC   EELATIONS    391 

of  a  "Peace  without  Victory,"  from  the  standpoint  of 
practical  politics,  in  order  that,  neither  Germany  nor 
England  should  attain  to  a  superlatively  powerful  posi- 
tion. A  "Peace  without  Victory"  of  this  sort,  under 
American  patronage,  would  have  left  the  United  States 
in  the  undisputed  position  of  the  first  political  power  in 
the  world.  To  this,  there  was  added  certain  other  reasons 
of  an  ideal  political  nature,  owing  to  the  fact  that  both 
Mr.  Wilson  and  the  great  majority  of  the  American 
people  wished  to  put  an  end  to  all  the  bloodshed  and 
misery. 

(3)  The  beginning  of  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war  was 
bound,  as  things  had  developed,  to  lead  automatically  to 
the  rupture   of  diplomatic  relations  with  the  United 
States. 

(4)  As  matters  stood  in  America,  the  rupture  of  diplo- 
matic relations  was  equally  bound  automatically  to  bring 
about  war  with  the  United  States. 

(5)  War  with  the  United  States  had  to  be  averted  at 
all  costs,  because  America's  help  meant  giving  our  enemy 
such  an  overwhelming  preponderance  of  power,  that  a 
German  defeat  became  an  absolute  certainty. 

(6)  The  political  situation  was  such  that,  the  accept- 
ance of  the  American  offer  of  mediation  was  the  only 
means  of  preventing  the  United  States  from  entering  the 
war. 

(7)  If  America  did  not  enter  the  war,  the  Entente 
were  not  in  a  position  to  beat  us. 

(8)  If  Mr.  Wilson  had  succeeded  in  bringing  both 
belligerent  parties  to  the  conference  table,  a  sort  of 
Hubertsburg  Peace*  would  have  been  concluded.     In 

*This  refers  to  the  Treaty  of  Hubertsburg,  which  was  one  of  the 
treaties  that  put  an  end  to  the  Seven  Years  War  on  the  15th  February, 
1763.  It  was  concluded  between  the  States  of  Prussia,  Austria  and 
Saxony.  Nobody  seems  to  have  derived  any  advantage  from  the  treaty, 
except  perhaps  Frederick  II.,  on  whose  province  of  Silesia  Marie-The'rese 
renounced  all  further  claim. 


392        MY   THEEE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

view  of  the  situation,  a  peace  unfavorable  to  ourselves 
was  unthinkable.  Who,  at  that  time,  could  have  com- 
pelled us  to  accept  terms  which  we  regarded  as  incom- 
patible with  Germany's  position  in  the  world?  Herr 
Helfferich,  before  the  Examination  Committee  of  the 
National  Assembly,  expressed  the  view  that  in  the  end 
Mr.  Wilson  would  have  forced  peace  upon  us  with  the 
butt-end  of  a  rifle.  But  whence  would  he  have  obtained 
this  butt-end?  He  had  not  one,  and  it  took  him  a  year  to 
create  an  army.  No  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  United 
States  can  believe  that  it  would  ever  have  been  possible 
to  drive  the  Americans  into  the  war,  once  a  Peace  Con- 
ference had  assembled.  For  then  it  would  only  have  been 
a  matter  of  deciding  the  fate  of  one  or  two  pieces  of 
territory  or  colonies,  in  which  the  Americans  would  not 
have  felt  the  slightest  interest.  Naturally,  we  should 
have  had  to  restore  Belgium  and  accept  the  disarmament 
programme,  etc.  But  we  had  already  declared  ourselves 
ready  to  take  these  measures,  and,  as  regards  disarma- 
ment, etc.,  this  reform  was  inevitable,  in  view  of  the 
economic  position  of  all  the  countries  concerned.  If 
America  had  not  entered  the  war,  no  one  could  have 
forced  us  to  accept  less  advantageous  terms  than  the 
status  quo  ante,  with  possibly  some  mutual  compensation. 


CHAPTER  XH 
THE    RETURN   HOME 

AFTER  the  rupture  of  diplomatic  relations,  I  entrusted 
the  care  of  our  interests  to  the  Swiss  Legation,  and  from 
that  time  I  did  not  speak  a  word  to  any  American  official 
except  to  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  State,  Breckenridge 
Long,  who  accompanied  us  as  far  as  the  boat  at  New 
York.  From  the  majority  of  those  gentlemen  with  whom 
I  had  official  relations,  however,  I  received  very  friendly 
letters  of  farewell. 

The  principal  passage  in  the  letter  from  Lansing,  the 
Secretary  of  State,  was  as  follows : 

"I  shall  bear  in  mind  all  your  earnest  efforts  in  the 
cause  of  peace,  and  will  gladly  recall  our  personal  rela- 
tions, which,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  of  the  situation, 
were  always  a  pleasure  to  me." 

In  view  of  the  conditions  prevailing  at  the  time,  the 
preparations  for  our  departure  took  a  long  time.  It  was 
only  with  difficulty  that  we  were  able  to  obtain  the  neces- 
sary accommodation  for  the  large  number  of  German 
officials  and  their  families  on  the  Danish  ship  Friedrich 
VIII..  The  business  of  getting  the  necessary  papers — 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  Entente's  safe  conduct — also 
necessitated  lengthy  negotiations,  which  were  conducted 
by  the  Swiss  Legation  with  the  assistance  of  Prince 
Hatzfeldt,  the  Secretary  of  the  Embassy.  Our  departure 
could  only  take  place  on  the  14th  February. 

It  was  not  pleasant  to  be  obliged  to  remain  eleven  days 
longer  in  Washington.  The  moment  the  rupture  of  diplo- 

393 


394        MY   THREE   YEARS   IN   AMERICA 

matic  relations  occurred,  the  secret  police  took  possession 
of  the  Embassy,  and  shadowed  every  one  of  my  move- 
ments. These  precautionary  measures  were  supposed  to 
guarantee  my  personal  safety;  but  I  should  have  been 
quite  safe  without  them,  for  all  Americans  behaved  to- 
wards me  with  perfect  propriety  and  courtesy.  Our 
personal  friends  did  not  allow  the  rupture  of  diplomatic 
relations  to  make  any  difference  in  their  attitude  towards 
us.  Until  the  very  day  of  our  departure,  my  wife  and  I 
were  the  daily  guests  of  American  friends.  Even  the 
Press,  with  but  a  few  exceptions,  maintained  a  friendly 
attitude ;  for  all  the  journalists  knew  that  I  had  worked 
hard  to  maintain  peace.  As  an  example  of  this,  I  repro- 
duce below  an  article  from  the  New  York  Tribime,  which 
is  one  of  the  leading  anti-German  papers  in  America.  I 
give  the  article,  somewhat  abbreviated,  in  the  original, 
in  order  to  preserve  its  American  character: 

"Diplomacy  and  Friendship  twin  arts  of  Bernstorfr". 

"  Departing  German  Envoy,  target  of  critics  here  and 
at  home,  quits  post  with  brilliant  record  and  many  per- 
sonal friends. 

"The  sailing  of  Friedrich  VIII.  invites  the  cordial 
obituary  style,  though  diplomatic  deaths  are  supposed  to 
warrant  no  sadness.  And  yet,  curiously  enough,  Count 
Bernstorff  probably  finds  himself  leaving  when  more 
people  are  personally  for  him  and  fewer  against  him  than 
,  at  any  time  in  the  last  two  years.  A  less  distinguished 
diplomat  would  not  have  had  the  art  to  stay  so  long. 

"A  letter  from  Washington,  dated  June,  1915,  is  in  my 
desk.  It  tells  incidentally  about  the  visit  of  a  friend  to 
the  Ambassador  shortly  after  his  interview  with  the 
President.  'It's  coming  out  all  right,'  the  Count  said 
cheerfully,  his  melancholy  eyes  lighting  up,  and  the 
anxious  lines  etched  in  his  face  during  the  months  past 


THE  RETURN  HOME  395 

lightening.  'No,  they're  not  going  to  get  rid  of  me  yet 
for  a  while,'  referring  to  the  Press  clamor  for  his 
dismissal. 

' '  *  I  'm  glad  of  that,  *  answered  the  friend.  '  Then  you  '11 
stay  and  get  some  more  degrees.'  (Eight  American  uni- 
versities had  honored  him.)  'Oh,'  he  answered  with  a 
gesture,  'I  may  leave  by  degrees.'  It  is  winning  to  catch 
an  Excellency  at  puns. 

"At  his  departure  many  persons — close  friends  of  the 
last  eight  years  and  newspaper  correspondents — are 
going  to  miss  his  amazing  charm  and  the  easy  candor  of 
his  talk.  He  has  had  an  intimate  directness  in  his  deal- 
ings with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people,  that  only  a 
personage  of  magnetic  personality  can  adopt. 

"Sheer  charm  alone  can  forget  caste  consciousness. 
Count  Bernstorff  has  had  none  of  the  patent  heavy  regard 
for  himself  that  makes  three-quarters  of  official  Germany 
a  chore  to  meet.  'I'll  put  you  through,'  the  little  tele- 
phone girl,  at  his  favorite  New  York  hotel,  used  to  say 
promptly,  when  his  Excellency  was  asked  for,  and  knew 
that  she  was  safe. 

"Reporters  will  miss  seeing  him  teeter  informally  by 
the  Embassy  fireplace  as  he  interviewed  them,  or  gave 
out  a  significant  something  from  behind  a  hastily-raised 
newspaper. 

"The  insistent  friends  of  Germany,  heavily  friendly 
and  advisory,  will  miss  his  English,  very  soft  with  an 
attractive  ghost,  now  and  then,  of  a  lisp.  He  learned  it 
in  London,  his  first  language,  for  he  was  born  there  fifty- 
five  years  ago.  His  father,  Count  Albrecht,  was  on 
service  as  Ambassador  to  the  Court  of  St.  James'. 
,  "Count  Bernstorff  came  to  America  from  his  post  as 
Consul-General  in  Cairo.  He  was  stationed  there  in  the 
trying  diplomatic  period  of  Anglo-French  rapprochement 
and  the  rise  of  naval  competition  between  the  English 


396       MY   THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

and  the  German  empires.  By  many,  Count  Bernstorff  is 
credited  with  saving  Turkish  Egypt  and  most  of  the 
Moslem  world  to  the  German  balance.  They  say  he  did 
it  over  coffee  with  Khedive  Abbas  Hilmy,  who  never, 
never  was  bored  by  his  wit,  nor  failed  to  appreciate  the 
graces  bred  down  from  thirteenth-century  Mecklenburg 
of  the  tall  Herr  Consul-General.  And  in  return  from  the 
Moslem  Count  Bernstorff  may  have  caught  some  of  his 
comforting  regard  for  kismet. 

"The  man  is  more  than  a  little  fatalist.  'What  hap- 
pens must  happen, '  he  was  wont  to  say,  as  he  sorted  the 
threatening  letters  from  his  morning  correspondence. 
And  again:  'What  difference  does  it  make?  They've 
killed  so  many  that  one  more  can  make  no  difference.' 

"He  goes  back  to  Berlin  now,  there  as  here  different 
things  to  different  people.  A  rank  Social  Democrat  I 
have  heard  him  called  in  drawing-rooms,  where  news  of 
his  earnest  plea  to  his  Government  for  a  liberal  Lusitania 
Note  had  leaked  out. 

"It  has  not  been  easy  for  him  to  construe  and  weigh 
the  American  situation  for  his  Government,  and  have  his 
judgment  taken,  any  more  than  it  has  been  easy  for  Mr. 
Gerard  to  convince  the  German  Foreign  Office  that  the 
American  Notes  were  really  meant.  Often  the  same 
agent  knocked  both  men  and  got  in  ahead  of  either  as  the 
authority  on  what  America  would  do. 

"A  certain  American  Baroness,  Egeria  to  the  Ameri- 
can journalists  in  Berlin,  who  has  no  use  for  Bernstorff 
or  Gerard  or  Zimmermann,  has  been  one  of  his  many 
cockle  burrs.  Most  of  the  German- Americans  who  chose 
to  protest  about  the  shipment  of  munitions  and  all  of 
pro-submarine  Germany  plus  an  aspirant  or  two  for  his 
post — all  of  these  have  been  busy  against  him.  And  the 
Americans  are  legion  who  have  seconded  the  hate.  He 
himself  has  been  silent,  with  an  occasional  wry  smile  over 


THE   RETURN   HOME  397 

it  all.  He  has  never  excused  himself  when  attacks  on 
him,  personally,  followed  German  actions  against  which 
he  had  counselled. 

"He  has  tried  over  and  over  again  to  explain  to  the 
German  Foreign  Office  the  temper  of  the  American 
people,  whose  sentimentality  is  so  different  from  that 
which  prevails  in  the  Hanover-Bremen-Leipzig  breast. 
The  Hamburger-Nachrichten  has  reviled  him.  It  has 
been  hard  to  see  with  Hamburg  eyes  what  Count  Bern- 
storff  must  know — that  hardly  a  diplomat  alive  could 
have  stayed  so  long  on  friendly  terms  with  Washington, 
through  these  two  years,  or  reaped  so  heavy  a  harvest  of 
understanding  from  his  study  of  poker  and  baseball  as 
well  as  American  commerce  and  institutions.  People  like 
to  write — I,  too — of  his  melancholy  eyes,  his  gently 
cynical  estimates  of  most  dreamers'  hopes.  Over  one 
circumstance  he  has  been  always  hopeful.  He  has  clung 
always  to  the  hope  that  America  neutral  would  be  a 
leader  in  the  erection  of  peace  machinery,  eager  that 
every  diplomatic  transaction  should  perhaps  have  the 
possibility  of  an  instrument.  His  real  object  in  leaving, 
I  am  sure,  is  that  not  again  will  he  turn  over  a  communi- 
cation from  the  American  State  Department  to  read  a 
faint  hope  of  peace  between  lines." 

Apart  from  the  measures  taken  for  our  security,  our 
departure  from  "Washington  and  New  York  was  not  very 
different  from  what  it  would  have  been  in  ordinary  times, 
had  I  been  moving  to  take  up  my  duties  in  another  coun- 
try. Many  friends  came  to  the  railway  station  at  Wash- 
ington, and  on  the  boat  at  New  York.  Telegrams  and 
letters  of  farewell  came  in  hundreds,  and  our  cabins  were 
full  of  presents,  consisting  of  baskets  of  fruit,  flowers, 
cigars,  books,  beverages  of  all  kinds,  which  are  the  cus- 
tom at  leavetakings  in  America.  In  these  circumstances, 


398       MY  THREE   YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

and  after  all  that  I  have  described  in  the  foregoing  pages, 
I  was  not  a  little  astonished  when,  about  a  year  later,  the 
American  War-Propaganda  Department  began  to  hold 
me  responsible  for  proceedings  which  were  partly  simply 
fiction,  and  for  the  rest  of  a  kind  that  had  occurred  with- 
out any  assistance  from  me  whatever.  I  can  understand 
perfectly  the  wish  of  the  American  Propaganda  Depart- 
ment to  create  a  war  spirit,  just  as  the  same  department 
in  all  belligerent  countries  strove  to  do;  nevertheless,  it 
was  not  necessary  to  adorn  the  war  propaganda  with  un- 
justifiable personal  attacks.  Nothing  happened  after  my 
departure  from  America  to  prompt  such  attacks.  A  few 
of  my  telegrams  were,  to  be  sure,  deciphered  and  pub- 
lished in  order  to  prove  that  I  had  hatched  a  conspiracy. 
When  the  Military  and  Naval  Attaches  were  compelled 
to  leave  the  United  States,  I  could  not  very  well  avoid 
discharging  the  whole  of  the  naval  and  military  business 
myself.  But  this  does  not  prove  that  I  had  previously 
had  any  dealings  with  these  matters,  even  admitting  that 
the  Naval  and  Military  Attaches  had  been  guilty  of  illegal 
practices,  which,  despite  all  the  uproar  created  by  enemy 
propaganda,  I  do  not  believe  to  have  been  proved.  Once 
the  fever  of  war  has  died  down,  no  one,  presumably,  will 
feel  any  interest  in  devoting  any  attention  to  such  ques- 
tions. If,  however,  later  on,  anyone  should  feel  inclined 
to  investigate  the  " German  conspiracies,"  and  " German 
propaganda,"  in  the  United  States,  in  an  impartial  spirit, 
he  will  be  astonished  to  find  how  many  fantastic  fictions 
were  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  Investigation  Com- 
mittee of  the  Senate,  and  what  small  justification  lay  at 
the  bottom  of  the  charges  made  against  the  German 
Embassy. 

When,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  14th  of  February,  we 
took  to  sea,  we  had  no  idea  that  we  were  to  enjoy  the 
hospitality  of  the  gallant  steamer  Friedrich  VIII. ,  and 


THE   EETUEN   HOME  399 

its  amiable  captain,  for  four  long  weeks.  Ever  since  the 
establishment  of  regular  lines  of  passenger  steamers 
between  America  and  Europe,  we  must  certainly  have 
broken  all  records  in  regard  to  the  length  of  time  we  took 
to  complete  the  journey.  There  were  on  board  the  Fried- 
rich  VIII.,  in  addition  to  the  whole  of  the  staff  of  the 
Embassy,  together  with  their  wives  and  children,  the 
complete  personnel  of  the  consulates,  as  also  a  few  native 
Germans,  who  for  some  reason  or  other,  happened  to  be 
in  America  and  had  not  yet  had  an  opportunity  of  return- 
ing home.  A  few  Scandinavians  completed  the  list  of  the 
passengers.  The  total  number  of  Germans  was  approxi- 
mately two  hundred.  According  to  the  wording  of  the 
Safe  Conduct  which  we  had  been  granted,  we  were  al- 
lowed to  take  with  us  our  personal  belongings  and  "a 
reasonable  amount  of  money. "  We  were  expressly  for- 
bidden to  carry  any  papers. 

The  first  twenty-four  hours  of  the  journey  were  the 
most  pleasant.  The  sea  was  calm  and  the  weather  was 
not  too  cold,  and  on  the  following  evening  we  reached 
Halifax,  which  was  the  port  at  which  we  were  to  be 
examined.  It  was  selected  in  order  that  we  might  not 
have  to  enter  the  war  zone.  Here  we  had  the  first  taste 
of  the  vexations  of  the  journey.  Our  captain  wanted  to 
enter  the  port;  but  he  was  ordered  to  anchor  outside. 
On  the  following  morning  the  authorities  allowed  us  to 
enter.  We  were  placed  under  the  supervision  of  the 
English  cruiser  Devonshire,  and  I  cannot  help  admitting 
that  the  English  naval  officers  discharged  the  undignified 
and  distasteful  duties  imposed  upon  them  with  great 
courtesy.  The  Canadian  officials,  on  the  other  hand,  be- 
haved with  the  utmost  disrespect  and  boorishness.  They 
appeared  to  be  accustomed  to  dealing  only  with  immi- 
grants and  stowaways. 

I  do  not  know  to  this  day,  why,  in  spite  of  our  Safe 


400       MY   THEEE   YEARS   IN  AMERICA 

Conduct,  we  were  held  up  twelve  days  in  the  Bedford 
Basin,  which,  with  its  encircling  snow-clad  hills,  was  com- 
pletely shut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  examina- 
tion in  itself  could  not*  adequately  account  for  this 
strange  and  uncustomary  behavior,  particularly  towards 
an  Ambassador:  for  although  the  ship's  coal  was  ulti- 
mately sifted  in  the  search  for  contraband  goods,  if  any 
good-will  had  been  shown,  the  examination  could  have 
been  finished  in  three  to  four  days  at  the  outside.  I 
suppose,  however,  that  the  delay  was  intended  to  serve 
political  ends.  The  English  probably  wanted  to  keep  us 
shut  up  in  Halifax  until  the  United  States  had  entered 
into  the  war.  They  were  perfectly  well  aware  of  my 
views,  and  feared  that  in  Berlin  I  might  after  all  succeed 
in  effecting  an  understanding  with  the  American  Govern- 
ment. As,  however,  developments  in  the  United  States 
dragged  on  very  slowly,  and  at  first  only  an  armed  neu- 
trality was  contemplated,  the  English  were  ultimately 
obliged  to  allow  us  to  continue  our  journey,  because  they 
could  not  very  well  keep  us  confined  for  weeks. 

Personally,  I  cannot  complain  of  the  treatment  to 
which  I  was  subjected  at  Halifax,  for  I  was  the  only  one 
among  all  my  fellow  passengers  of  German  nationality 
who  had  not  to  submit  to  having  my  person  searched,  and 
was  only  required  to  sign  a  declaration  that  I  was  carry- 
ing no  papers.  Everybody  else — even  my  wife — had  to 
consent  to  being  searched,  an  operation  which  was  per- 
formed in  a  humiliating  manner,  and  which  led  to  many 
an  unpleasant  scene.  Even  little  Huberta  Hatzf eldt,  who 
was  only  three  months  old,  was  stripped  of  her  swaddling 
clothes.  The  Canadian  authorities  assessed  the  "reason- 
able sum  of  money "  allowed  at  ninety  dollars  a  head,  and 
confiscated  all  moneys  above  that  sum  as  contraband.  In 
this  way,  Countess  Manfred  Matuschka  lost  25,000  dol- 
lars, which,  in  ignorance  of  the  regulations,  she  had 


THE   EETUEN   HOME  401 

brought  with  her.  The  sum  was  to  be  deposited  with  a 
Canadian  Bank,  but  has  probably  been  lost  forever  by 
its  owner.  As  I  was  forbidden  to  have  any  communica- 
tion whatsoever  with  the  outside  world,  I  was  not  able 
to  carry  out  my  intention  of  lodging  a  complaint  at 
Washington  regarding  this  breach  of  the  Safe  Conduct 
that  had  been  granted  to  us. 

At  last,  however,  our  imprisonment  came  to  an  end, 
and  we  were  allowed  to  pursue  our  journey.  Amid  the 
cheers  of  all  on  board,  including  particularly  those  of  our 
excellent  captain,  who  felt  the  affront  we  had  received 
very  deeply,  we  weighed  anchor.  Judge  of  the  almost 
panic-stricken  disappointment  of  all  the  passengers, 
therefore,  when  at  the  end  of  a  few  knots,  the  ship  turned 
back  on  her  course !  To  the  great  relief  of  all  concerned, 
however,  it  appeared  that  we  had  only  forgotten  to  take 
on  board  the  wireless  telegraphy  apparatus  which  had 
been  taken  from  us  at  Halifax.  From  that  moment,  apart 
from  very  bad  and  cold  weather,  we  continued  our 
journey  without  further  incident.  We  took  a  sweeping 
curve  northward,  then  sailed  down  the  Norwegian  coast 
without  meeting  either  an  enemy  ship  or  a  German 
submarine.  Some  of  the  neutral  passengers  were  so 
much  terrified  of  the  latter,  that  they  did  not  retire  to 
their  beds  for  many  nights  at  a  stretch. 

At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  landed  in  the  snow  in 
Christiania.  Meanwhile  the  Mexico  telegram  had  been 
published  in  Washington,  and  Michaelis,  the  German 
Ambassador,  in  accordance  with  instructions,  came  on 
board,  in  order  to  learn  from  me  whether  I  could  offer 
any  explanation  of  the  fact — that  is  to  say,  whether  I 
suspected  treachery  on  the  part  of  any  of  my  staff.  It  is 
indeed  plain  from  the  oft-quoted  reports  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Senate,  that  a  host  of  underhand  tricks 
must  have  been  played,  particularly  in  the  Post  Office; 


402       MY   THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

nevertheless,  I  am  of  opinion  that  in  this  case  the  ex- 
planation which  I  gave  above  is  the  correct  one.  The 
telegram  in  question,  like  many  others,  was  presumably 
deciphered  by  the  English.  From  the  experience  gained 
during  the  war,  we  have  learned  that  the  diplomacy  of 
the  future  will  never  be  allowed  to  rely,  for  important 
matters,  upon  the  secret  of  a  cipher;  for  skilful  experts 
are  now  able  to  discover  the  most  complicated  code,  pro- 
vided that  they  are  able  to  intercept  a  sufficient  number 
of  telegrams.  Over  and  above  this,  owing  to  our  isolation 
in  Washington,  we  were  able  to  alter  the  cipher  but  very 
seldom.  As  to  the  suggestion  of  treachery  on  the  part  of 
any  member  of  my  staff — I  never  believed  in  this  at  the 
time,  nor  do  I  believe  in  it  now.  In  very  hard  times  they 
all  proved  themselves  to  be  thoroughly  loyal  and  efficient. 
We  had  to  remain  in  Christiania  longer  than  we  ex- 
pected, because  the  route  across  the  Sound  to  Copen- 
hagen was  entirely  ice-bound.  Finally,  with  the  help  of 
ice-breakers,  even  this  obstacle  was  overcome,  and  after 
a  day's  halt  at  Copenhagen,  we  at  last  reached  Berlin 
via  Warnemiinde.  We  had  received  an  extremely  hos- 
pitable and  cordial  welcome  at  Christiania  and  Copen- 
hagen, at  the  hands  of  the  Ambassadors,  Michaelis  and 
Count  Brockdorff-Rantzau — we  also  had  an  opportunity 
of  convincing  ourselves  that  the  feeling  in  Denmark  and 
Norway  had  turned  against  us  just  as  sharply  as  in 
America.  The  balance  of  power  was,  however,  different. 
If  our  neutral  neighbors  had  not  been  living  in  fear  of 
German  power,  they  would  at  this  time  have  responded 
to  Mr.  Wilson's  call,  and  would  have  broken  off  all  diplo- 
matic relations  with  us.  I  believe  that  the  President  was 
hoping  that  events  might  take  this  turn,  and  that  he  would 
thus  be  spared  the  need  of  waging  war.  If  all  the  coun- 
tries in  the  world  were  to  declare  war  against  Germany 
and  her  Allies — this  is  what  was  assumed  in  Washington 


THE   RETURN  HOME  403 

— the  economic  pressure  would  alone  suffice  to  compel 
the  Central  Powers  to  yield.  The  policy  proposed  was 
similar  to  the  one  which,  in  the  future,  the  League  of 
Nations  would  pursue  against  any  refractory  member  of 
its  body,  and  which  the  Entente  proposes  to  adopt  to-day 
against  Bolshevist  Eussia.  The  great  length  of  time 
which  it  took  the  United  States  to  enter  the  war  is,  in 
my  opinion,  to  be  explained  in  this  way.  The  idea  was 
to  wait  and  see  how  things  would  develop.  Meanwhile, 
thanks  to  the  Mexico  telegram,  war-propaganda  in 
America  was  being  worked  with  great  success,  and  the 
military  preparations  made  such  steady  progress,  that 
even  if  economic  measures  did  not  prove  sufficient  to  end 
the  war,  the  United  States  would  have  obtained  the  army 
they  had  longed  for  for  so  many  years,  as  also  the  fleet 
of  war  and  merchant  ships,  for  which  in  times  of  peace 
Congress  would  never  have  voted  the  necessary  funds. 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  after  our  arrival  in  Berlin, 
I  was  received  by  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  with  whom 
I  had  a  long  interview.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Herr 
von  Bethmann-Hollweg  informed  me  that  he  could  not 
help  consenting  to  the  U-boat  war,  as  the  German  people 
would  never  have  understood  it  if  we  had  concluded  an 
unsatisfactory  peace,  without  attempting  to  bring  about 
a  happy  decision  by  means  of  the  last  and  most  effective 
weapon  in  which  the  nation  felt  any  confidence.  He  also 
said  that  he  would  have  been  unable  to  go  before  the 
Reichstag  with  an  offer  of  mediation  from  Mr.  Wilson, 
because  such  intervention  would  not  have  been  popular, 
public  opinion  would  not  have  liked  it,  and  it  would  only 
have  been  accepted  by  the  Social  Democrats.  Herr  von 
Bethmann-Hollweg  declared  that  the  Reichstag  would 
have  "thrown  him  out."  This  was  the  very  expression 
he  used.  But  this  did  not  explain  why,  a  few  weeks  pre- 
viously, Mr.  Wilson's  mediation  had  seemed  desirable,  if, 


404       MY   THEEE  YEAES   IN   AMERICA 

as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  impossible  to  get  the  Eeichstag 
to  agree  to  it.  Meanwhile,  the  political  situation  at  that 
time  has  been  completely  elucidated  by  the  evidence 
which  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg  gave  before  the  Ex- 
amination Committee  of  the  National  Assembly.  In  his 
account  of  the  interview  he  had  with  me,  he  spoke  as 
follows : 

"As  regards  my  interview  with  Count  Bernstorff,  on 
his  return  from  America,  I  should  like  to  make  the 
following  remarks :  I  cannot  recall  all  the  details  of  the 
conversation  I  had  with  Count  Bernstorff.  Count  Bern- 
storff has  revealed  in  his  evidence  what  I  said  to  him,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  that  he  has  accurately  reproduced  my 
actual  words.  My  duty  was — and  this  is  an  idea  I 
already  touched  upon  earlier  in  the  day — once  the  policy 
of  an  unrestricted  U-boat  war  was  resolved  upon,  never 
to  reveal  to  anyone  any  doubts  as  to  the  efficacy  of  the 
scheme.  In  this  case,  too,  I  had  to  say,  we  shall  achieve 
something  by  means  of  it.  And  that  is  why  in  my  con- 
versation with  Count  Bernstorff,  I  did  not  reveal  my  in- 
most feelings  on  the  subject — there  was  no  need  for  me 
to  do  so — but  simply  referred  to  the  reasons  which  could 
be  adduced  in  favor  of  the  U-boat  war." 

The  reception  which  I  was  given  in  Berlin,  certainly  at 
first  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  The  Imperial  Chancellor, 
on  the  occasion  of  our  first  meeting,  had  thanked  me  in 
a  very  hearty  manner  for  my  work  in  Washington,  and  a 
few  days  later,  proposed  that  I  should  go  on  an  extraor- 
dinary mission  to  Stockholm.  On  principle  I  was  quite 
prepared  to  do  this,  seeing  that  the  recent  outbreak  of 
revolution  in  Russia,  and  the  prospective  international 
Socialist  conference  in  Stockholm,  would  offer  fresh 
possibilities  of  peace,  and  an  opportunity  for  useful 


THE   RETURN  HOME  405 

work.  From  various  things  I  had  noticed  in  Berlin,  I 
gathered  that — as  the  evidence  before  the  Examination 
Committee  proved — the  Imperial  Chancellor  would  have 
preferred  to  give  up  the  idea  of  the  U-boat  war,  and  to 
accept  American  intervention  in  favor  of  peace,  but  that 
he  was  compelled  to  give  in,  owing  to  the  overwhelming 
advocacy  of  the  U-boat  campaign.  It  was  to  be  hoped, 
therefore,  that  with  the  expected  speedy  failure  of  U-boat 
tactics,  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg  would  snatch  at  the 
next  opportunity  of  making  peace.  As  he  remained  in 
Office,  in  spite  of  the  U-boat  war,  his  chief  motive  for  so 
doing  must  certainly  have  been  that  "after  his  departure 
the  whole  of  the  power,  both  of  external  and  internal 
politics,  would  have  gone  over  without  resistance  to  the 
machinery  of  war-fever."  I  regarded  any  policy  as  the 
right  one,  which  arrived  at  a  prompt  conclusion  of  peace, 
provided  that  we  did  not  make  any  confession  of  weak- 
ness by  ourselves  initiating  fresh  offers  of  peace.  We  had 
already  erred  once  in  this  way.  But  in  Stockholm  it 
seemed  likely  that  opportunities  might  occur  of  winning 
either  the  Eussians  or  the  foreign  Socialists  over  to  a 
movement  in  favor  of  peace. 

As  I  heard  nothing,  either  about  the  Stockholm 
Mission,  or  about  an  audience  with  the  Kaiser,  which  I 
was  led  to  expect  in  connection  with  it,  I  went  at  the  end 
of  a  few  days  to  find  out  what  had  happened,  and  I  was 
told  that  the  Kaiser  had  declined  to  sanction  my  mission 
to  Stockholm.  Although  I  had  a  second  interview  with 
the  Imperial  Chancellor,  I  was  never  able  to  ascertain 
definitely  the  reason  of  the  Kaiser's  anger  against  me. 
Since,  however,  General  Ludendorff,  simply  on  the 
grounds  of  my  particular  views,  made  his  "  impassioned  " 
attack  on  me  before  the  Examination  Committee  of  the 
National  Assembly,  I  have  no  longer  been  in  any  doubt 
whatsoever  as  to  the  nature  of  the  influence  that  was  at 


406       MY  THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

work  at  General  Headquarters.  At  the  time,  I  only 
suspected  the  prevalence  of  some  such  feelings  in  that 
quarter,  because  I  had  heard  it  whispered  that  the  Mon- 
arch did  not  like  my  "democratic  views."  The  reasons 
for  the  Kaiser's  anger,  which  were  given  me  officially, 
were  of  too  trivial  a  nature  to  be  even  plausible. 

I  must  next  refer  to  the  dispatch  box  of  the  Swedish 
Legation  in  Washington.  At  New  York  Herr  Ekengren 
had  put  on  board  the  steamer  Friedrich  VIII.  a  box  con- 
taining Swedish  telegrams,  which  was  to  be  forwarded 
to  its  destination. 

This  box,  the  very  existence  of  which  we  Germans  knew 
nothing  about,  was  taken  possession  of  by  the  British 
authorities  in  Halifax,  and  dispatched  to  England.  The 
London  newspapers  then  reported  that  a  dispatch  box, 
belonging  to  Count  Bernstorff,  and  containing  documents 
of  the  German  Embassy,  had  been  opened  there.  Al- 
though the  mistake,  whether  intentional  or  the  reverse, 
was  very  soon  elucidated,  someone  had  laid  the  matter 
before  the  Kaiser  in  a  distorted  light.  Apparently  the 
Kaiser  was  allowed  to  form  the  suspicion  that  the  open- 
ing of  the  box  had  betrayed  the  secret  of  the  Mexico 
telegram. 

A  further  reason  for  his  displeasure,  at  the  time,  was 
told  me  subsequently  at  Constantinople  by  the  Kaiser 
himself.  He  said  that  I  had  "let  him  down  most 
dreadfully,"  when  I  had  recommended  Mr.  Gerard  as 
American  Ambassador  to  Berlin.  I  ought  never  to  have 
supported  the  nomination  of  such  a  "Tammany  Hall" 
creature.  If  he — the  Kaiser — had  only  known  at  the 
time  who  Gerard  was,  and  what  Tammany  Hall  could 
be,  he  would  never  have  accepted  this  Ambassador.  In 
Constantinople  I  was  able  to  reply  to  the  Kaiser  pretty 
fully,  as  the  interview  took  place  during  a  somewhat  long 
journey  on  the  Bosphorus.  I  certainly  did  recommend 


THE  RETURN  HOME  407 

Mr.  Gerard  in  due  course,  but  only  after  he  had  already 
been  selected  as  Ambassador  by  Mr.  Wilson.  Before  he 
had  been  chosen  I  was  not  asked.  If  at  that  time — in  the 
year  1913 — I  had  advised  the  rejection  of  Mr.  Gerard,  it 
would  only  have  created  a  lot  of  unnecessary  ill-feeling, 
as  was  the  case  at  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Hill.  It  is  the 
custom  in  America  to  select  the  Ambassadors  from 
politically  influential  circles  of  the  triumphant  party; 
irrespective  of  whether  Tammany  Hall  or  any  other 
organization  is  concerned. 

Moreover,  in  1903  I  believed  that  Mr.  Gerard  would  be 
welcome  in  Berlin,  for  social  reasons  alone.  Everybody 
knew  that  the  Kaiser  liked  to  have  Ambassadors  who 
entertained  on  a  lavish  scale.  Mr.  Gerard  was  the  only 
man,  among  all  the  candidates  of  that  day,  who  seemed 
fitted  for  this  and  in  a  position  to  live  up  to  it,  while  his 
rich  and  amiable  wife  was  admirably  suited  to  help  him 
in  his  task.  Before  the  war,  an  American  Ambassador 
in  Berlin  really  never  had  any  political  business  to 
transact,  for  it  was  the  tradition  with  the  United  States 
Government  to  conduct  all  negotiations  almost  exclu- 
sively with  the  diplomatic  Corps  in  Washington.  In  1913, 
therefore,  I  had  no  reason  to  advocate  the  rejection  of 
Mr.  Gerard  in  Berlin.  Unfortunately,  it  was  precisely 
in  the  social  sphere  that  he  had,  before  the  war,  experi- 
enced certain  disappointments  in  Berlin,  which,  as  far  as 
we  were  concerned,  might  have  been  avoided,  and  it  is 
possible  that  Mr.  Gerard  may  have  been  influenced  by 
these  regrettable  incidents.  In  any  case,  the  Ambassador 
did  not  like  Berlin,  and  he  took  too  little  pains  to  conceal 
the  fact.  Mr.  Gerard  was  not  the  sort  of  man  to  be  able 
to  swim  against  the  tide  of  anti-German  feeling,  once  it 
had  become  the  proper  thing  in  America  to  be  pro- Ally. 
As  to  whether  any  other  United  States  Ambassador 
would  have  shown  less  hostility  to  us,  however,  may  be 


408       MY  THEEE  YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

reasonably  doubted.  I  have  already  singled  out  the 
Adlon  dinner  as  a  proof  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Gerard 
could  behave  differently. 

Be  all  this  as  it  may,  the  reasons  which  were  alleged 
genuinely  to  justify  the  hostile  attitude  of  General 
Headquarters  towards  myself,  struck  me  as  not  being 
sufficiently  weighty.  I  say  " General  Headquarters" 
intentionally,  for  the  Kaiser  was  manifestly  only  preju- 
diced against  me  by  the  usual  whisperings  that  charac- 
terized the  Wilhelminian  epoch. 

Nevertheless,  I  had  conducted  the  most  important 
negotiations  of  the  war,  and  the  Monarch  must,  in  any 
case,  have  had  the  wish  to  hear  the  report  of  it  all  from 
the  person  chiefly  concerned.  Besides,  the  Kaiser  knew 
as  well  as  I  did,  that  in  Washington  I  had  pursued  the 
policy  of  which  he  and  the  Chancellor  were  actually  in 
favor.  Otherwise,  the  Imperial  Memorandum,  which  was 
sent  to  me  about  the  U-boat  war,  and  to  which  I  have 
already  referred,  would  be  inexplicable.  Meanwhile, 
however,  this  policy  had  not  been  able  to  prevail  against 
the  preponderating  influence  of  the  military  party,  who 
demanded  the  U-boat  campaign.  Now,  of  course,  I  have 
no  longer  any  doubt  that  the  views  which  General  Luden- 
dorff  expressed  against  me  before  the  Examination  Com- 
mittee of  the  National  Assembly,  simply  as  his  personal 
opinion  and  without  proof,  constituted  more  or  less  what 
was  suggested  to  the  Kaiser  at  this  time.  Briefly,  they 
wished  to  make  me  the  scapegoat  for  the  United  States' 
entry  into  the  war,  and  this,  despite  the  fact  that  all  that 
I  had  prophesied  in  regard  to  American  policy  had 
proved  correct,  and  all  that  my  opponents  had  prophesied 
had  proved  wrong.  In  their  efforts  to  accomplish  this 
end,  they  found  that  a  poisonous  mixture  could  be  brewed 
out  of  my  efforts  for  peace,  and  my  well-known  demo- 
cratic views,  which  the  Kaiser  was  not  able  to  resist. 


THE   RETURN   HOME  409 

The  unhappy  Monarch  unfortunately  never  once 
realized  that  the  " Democrats"  were  his  best  friends. 
The  Imperial  power  could,  in  the  long  run,  only  be  up- 
held, if  it  found  both  its  support  and  its  counter-weight 
in  a  strong  democracy.  Like  Friedrich  Wilhelm  IV., 
William  II.  was  also  unable  to  adapt  himself  to  the 
changing  circumstances  of  his  time.  The  one-sided  com- 
position of  his  entourage,  which  was  always  recruited 
from  among  people  who  held  his  own  views,  was,  at  all 
events,  chiefly  to  blame  for  this. 

Although  the  Imperial  Chancellor  had  told  me  that  he 
would  overcome  the  Kaiser's  displeasure  in  regard  to 
myself,  almost  two  months  elapsed  before  I  was  received 
at  General  Headquarters,  and  even  then,  it  was  only  be- 
cause a  question  had  been  asked  about  the  matter  in  the 
Eeichstag.  When  I  saw  the  Kaiser,  towards  the  begin- 
ning of  May,  in  Kreuznach,  the  American  question  was  of 
interest  merely  to  historians,  and  no  longer  to  politicians. 
Consequently,  my  interview  with  the  Monarch,  which  took 
place  on  a  walk,  was  not  of  very  great  moment.  With  his 
customary  skill,  the  Kaiser  steered  clear  of  any  attempt 
to  enter  deeply  into  the  political  problems  of  the  hour, 
and  behaved  towards  me,  for  the  rest,  just  as  affably  as 
he  had  been  wont  to  do  in  the  past. 

I  had  made  the  journey  to  Kreuznach  in  the  company 
of  my  late  friend,  Ballin,  whom  I  was  never  to  see  again. 
Whereas  I  was  invited  to  lunch  at  the  Imperial  board, 
Herr  Ballin  was  only  asked  to  dinner. 

Among  the  many  and  various  charges  which  were 
brought  against  me  in  my  Washington  days,  was  the 
allegation  that  I  was  principally  an  agent  of  Ballin 's.  I 
had,  in  cordial  agreement  with  Herr  Ballin,  always  en- 
ergetically supported  the  interests  of  German  Shipping 
Companies;  but  even  my  most  bitter  enemies  can  only 
justify  their  charge  against  me  for  the  period  preceding 


the  war.  For,  during  the  war,  Herr  Ballin  had  no  influ- 
ence at  all,  either  in  America  or  at  home.  He  was,  for 
instance,  kept  aloof  from  the  Kaiser,  because  he  was 
regarded  as  an  "interested  party"  and  as  a  pessimist. 
On  the  occasion  in  question,  a  high  official  of  the  Court 
said  to  me  at  the  Imperial  table  that  if  I  was  seeing 
Ballin  again  before  I  left  Kreuznach,  would  I  please  tell 
him  that  he  was  not  to  speak  so  pessimistically  to  the 
Emperor  as  he  was  wont  to  do.  The  Emperor  ought 
not  to  be  allowed  to  hear  such  stuff,  otherwise  he  would 
lose  nerve.  This  little  passage  of  conversation  is  a  proof 
of  the  carefully  "insulated"  position  in  which,  as  every- 
one knows,  the  Kaiser  was  kept. 

After  lunch  I  paid  a  visit  to  both  of  our  great  Army 
Commanders,  whose  acquaintance  I  made  for  the  first 
time  on  this  occasion. 

"Bowing  to  necessity  rather  than  to  my  own  personal 
tastes,"  I  must  now,  unfortunately,  enter  into  personal 
matters,  which  hitherto  I  have  diligently  avoided  in  this 
book.  I  cannot,  however,  help  referring  here  to  the 
utterly  unwarranted  attacks  made  upon  me  by  General 
Ludendorff,  in  his  evidence  before  the  Examination 
Committee  of  the  National  Assembly,  with  the  view  of 
refuting  my  own  account  of  the  interview  which  we  had 
at  G.  H.  Q.  At  all  events,  the  General  so  completely  lost 
control  of  himself  before  the  Examination  Committee, 
that  this  possibly  explains  his  false  interpretation  of  my 
evidence. 

To  deal  first  with  the  reason  which  actuated  me  in 
visiting  General  Ludendorff,  I  reproduce  below  the  dia- 
logue which  took  place  thereanent  before  the  Examina- 
tion Committee : 

Delegate  Dr.  Cohn:  Was  your  interview  with  Field- 
Marshal  Hindenburg  and  General  Ludendorff  brought 


THE  RETURN  HOME  411 

about  by  any  particular  person  or  persons — either  by 
yourself,  by  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  or  by  the  Foreign 
Office;  or  was  it  purely  accidental! 

Witness  Count  von  Bernstorff:  It  was  the  outcome  of 
the  circumstances.  I  received  a  telegram  which  informed 
me,  through  the  Foreign  Office,  that  I  was  to  report  to 
the  Kaiser  at  Kreuznach  on  the  4th  of  May.  Now,  Field- 
Marshal  Hindenburg  and  General  Ludendorff  were  also 
present  at  the  lunch  table,  and  I  felt  that  I  was  bound  in 
courtesy  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  two  gentlemen  after  the 
meal. 

Delegate  Dr.  Cohn:  Good.  If  I  understand  you  cor- 
rectly, my  lord,  G.  H.  Q.  did  not  even  feel  the  need  of 
speaking  with  the  Ambassador  just  recently  returned 
from  America? 

Witness  Count  von  Bernstorff:  No.  I  never  received 
any  summons  for  that  purpose, 

I  abide  by  these  utterances  to  this  day,  because  I 
actually  remained  seven  weeks  without  being  summoned 
to  an  interview  with  General  Ludendorff,  and  then  only 
visited  him  of  my  own  free  will,  on  the  occasion  when  I 
reported  to  the  Kaiser.  In  these  circumstances,  there- 
fore, I  was  entirely  justified  in  describing  my  visit  as 
simply  an  act  of  courtesy.  In  view  of  the  circumstances, 
I  might  perhaps  say :  an  act  of  super-courtesy. 

I  do  not  dispute  General  Ludendorff  's  statement  that 
I  had  expressed  the  wish  to  see  him;  for  if  I  had  not 
had  the  wish,  I  should  have  left  Kreuznach  without  pay- 
ing him  a  visit.  As,  however,  General  Ludendorff,  in  his 
evidence  before  the  Examination  Committee,  allowed  it 
to  be  plainly  understood  that,  owing  to  the  difference  of 
our  views,  he  did  not  like  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
me,  I  will  at  once  emphasize  the  fact,  that  my  wish  to  see 
him  was  actuated  by  purely  official  motives.  In  politics 


412       MY  THREE  YEARS  IN  AMERICA 

I  have  at  all  times  laid  all  personal  feelings  entirely 
aside,  and  have  thought  only  of  the  business  and  the 
interests  of  my  country.  While  I  was  kicking  my  heels 
in  Berlin  for  all  those  weeks,  waiting  upon  a  summons 
to  the  Emperor,  I  was  urged  by  many  people  to  try  and 
obtain  an  interview  with  General  Ludendorff,  in  order 
to  enlighten  him  regarding  American  affairs,  as  in  this 
respect  he  was  very  badly  informed.  The  latter  fact, 
has,  at  all  events,  been  substantiated  by  General  Luden- 
dorff himself,  in  his  evidence  before  the  Committee.  The 
ge'ntlemen  who  urged  me  to  obtain  this  interview,  them- 
selves made  efforts  to  bring  it  about.  But  these  efforts 
were  of  no  avail,  and  I  therefore  regarded  them  as  too 
insignificant  to  be  mentioned  in  my  own  evidence.  In 
all  my  utterances  before  the  Committee,  I  refrained  from 
all  allusion  to  personal  and  subjective  matters. 

General  Ludendorff  has  further  maintained  that  I 
impugned  his  honor  by  declaring  that,  generally  speak- 
ing, he  did  not  wish  to  conclude  peace.  I  naturally  never 
made  such  a  nonsensical  statement.  Immediately  after 
my  visit  to  General  Ludendorff  at  G.  H.  Q.,  I  made  notes 
of  the  essential  passages  of  our  interview;  because  I 
suspected,  what  in  my  opinion  has  since  become  a  cer- 
tainty, to  wit,  that  the  General  wished  to  heap  all  the 
blame  of  the  war  with  America  upon  my  shoulders. 
Every  impartial  reader  who  examines  the  Notes  given 
below,  will  be  forced  to  admit,  that  they  contain  nothing 
whatsoever  except  assertions,  which  have  been  confirmed 
by  all  the  evidence  given  before  the  Committee  of  the 
National  Assembly;  that  is  to  say: 


(1)  That  I  wished  to  accept  Mr.  Wilson's  offer  of 
mediation. 

(2)  That  the  Imperial  Government — that  is  to  say, 
G.  H.  Q.  or  whoever  was  responsible  for  taking  the  final 


THE  RETURN  HOME  413 

decision — did  not  wish  to  accept  Mr.  Wilson's  offer  of 
mediation,  in  order  to  declare  the  unrestricted  U-boat 
war  instead. 

(3)  That  the  Naval  Authorities  had  declared  them- 
selves in  a  position  to  bring  about  a  desire  for  peace  in 
England  in  five  months  from  the  1st  of  February. 

My  notes  about  the  interview  I  had  with  General 
LudendorfF  ran  as  follows : 

General  Ludendorff  received  me  with  the  following 
words : 

"In  America  you  wanted  to  make  peace.  You  evi- 
dently thought  we  were  at  the  end  of  our  tether." 

I  replied : 

"No,  I  did  not  think  that;  but  I  wanted  to  make  peace 
before  we  came  to  the  end  of  our  tether." 

Whereupon  the  General  said: 

"We,  however,  did  not  want  to.  Besides,  it  would  not 
have  been  surprising  if  you  had  thought  that  we  had 
come  to  the  end  of  our  resources.  The  communications 
you  received,  which  I  read  from  time  to  time,  certainly 
led  to  that  conclusion." 

Later  on  in  the  conversation,  General  Ludendorff 
asked  me  when,  in  my  opinion,  the  Americans  would 
participate  in  the  war  with  great  force.  I  replied  that 
in  twelve  months  a  large  American  army  was  to  be  ex- 
pected in  France,  and  that  this  army  would  be  organized 
with  comparative  ease.  To  this  the  General  rejoined 
that  in  that  case  we  had  ample  time  to  end  the  war 
meanwhile;  for  the  U-boats  would  force  England  to  a 
peace  in  three  months.  He  had  received  absolutely  cer- 
tain information  on  this  point.  When  I  was  on  the  point 
of  leaving,  General  Ludendorff  repeated  this  remark 
very  positively. 


\ 
414       MY   THREE   YEAES  IN  AMERICA 

Though  the  sense  was  the  same,  the  actual  wording  of 
my  evidence  before  the  Examination  Committee  differs 
somewhat  from  that  of  the  notes  given  above.  This  is 
explained,  however,  by  the  fact  that  I  spoke  quite  freely, 
and  therefore  prefaced  my  remarks  with  the  words: 
"So  far  as  I  can  remember,  and  so  far  as  I  am  able  to 
say,  under  oath,  the  conversation  was  more  or  less  as 
follows,"  etc. 

I  did  not  enter  into  the  personal  views  which  General 
Ludendorff  thought  fit  to  express  in  his  evidence  before 
the  Examination  Committee;  for  I  am  of  the  opinion 
that  the  duty  of  the  Committee  was  simply  to  establish 
the  real  truth  by  an  inquiry  into  the  facts.  It  is  open  to 
the  Committee  to  put  to  me  any  questions  they  like  con- 
cerning my  activities  in  Washington,  and  I  will  answer 
them  frankly;  but  I  think  that  a  quarrel  between  wit- 
nesses about  their  own  personal  opinions  would  have 
been  an  undignified  spectacle,  in  which  I  distinctly  re- 
fused to  participate.  I  gladly  leave  it  to  the  reader  of 
the  present  volume  to  form  his  own  ideas  regarding  my 
work  in  America. 

In  May,  1917,  I  left  G.  H.  Q.,  feeling  quite  convinced 
that  for  the  moment  there  was  no  room  for  me  in  German 
diplomacy ;  for  the  only  policy  which  I  regarded  as  right, 
had  no  prospect  of  being  realized.  After  my  return  from 
America,  I  was  placed  on  half -pay.  I  was  therefore  at 
liberty  to  return  home,  however  unwilling  I  may  have 
felt,  at  that  moment  of  great  tribulation  for  my  country, 
to  give  myself  up  to  a  life  of  ease  and  idleness.  During 
my  period  of  rest,  a  Reichstag  resolution  was  passed,  and 
there  was  a  change  of  Chancellors. 

When  Herr  von  Kiihlmann,  who  is  a  friend  of  mine, 
took  over  the  Foreign  Office,  he  summoned  me  by  tele- 
gram to  Berlin,  and  told  me  that  the  Imperial  Chancellor, 
Michaelis,  was  going  to  offer  me  the  post  of  Ambassador 


THE   EETURN  HOME  415 

in  Constantinople.  Some  years  previously  Herr  von 
Kiihimann  and  I  had  worked  together  in  London.  We 
had  been  on  very  good  terms,  and  since  then  I  had  never 
lost  touch  with  him.  As  he  assured  me  very  positively 
that  he  had  taken  over  the  Foreign  Office  in  order  to 
conclude  peace,  I  felt  no  qualms  about  returning  once 
more  to  diplomatic  duties.  I  did  not,  however,  conceal 
from  Herr  von  Kiihlmann,  that  I  expected  that  there 
would  be  very  strong  opposition  at  G.  H.  Q.  to  my  being 
employed  again  on  Foreign  Service.  The  Secretary  of 
State  was  of  the  opinion  that  we  might  confidently  leave 
this  side  of  the  question  to  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  who 
at  that  moment  was  on  his  honeymoon,  and  was  therefore 
admirably  situated  to  carry  things  through.  My  inter- 
view with  Herr  Michaelis  only  made  me  more  eager  than 
ever  to  undertake  the  Mission  to  Constantinople.  He 
said  to  me  that  he  was  offering  me  a  very  difficult  and 
unpleasant  billet,  for  I  should  have  to  wring  concessions 
from  the  Turks  with  the  object  of  bringing  about  peace. 
This  view  of  the  situation  corresponded  entirely  with  my 
own.  Contrary  to  my  expectations,  the  Imperial  ratifica- 
tion of  my  appointment  arrived;  but  the  Monarch  also 
seized  the  opportunity  of  making  certain  remarks  about 
my  democratic  views,  without,  however,  withholding  his 
signature  from  my  credentials. 

In  September  I  set  out  for  Constantinople,  where 
thirty  years  previously  I  had  started  my  diplomatic 
career,  and  where  I  was  now  to  end  it. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Ackennan,  Karl,  338 
Albert,  Privy  Councillor,  appoint- 
ment of,  36;  financial  affairs 
of,  40,  42,  46;  office  of,  41; 
propaganda  work  of,  49 ;  mov- 
ing picture  work'of ,  56 ;  ship- 
ping activities  of,  80  ff.,  85 
ff.;  hindrance  of,  83  ff.;  ma- 
rine insurance  and,  89,  92; 
"conspiracies"  and,  119;  du- 
ties of,  165;  robbing  of,  196 
ff.,  270 

Albrecht,  Count,  395 
Algeciras  Conference,  13  ff. 
Alsace,  329,  376 
America,  see  United  States 
American  Criminal  Court,  119 
Embassy  in  London,  316  ff. 
Institute  in  Berlin,  23 
Law  Department,  44,  262,  274 
Peace  League,  291 
Peace  Note,  318-321 
Press,  49  ff.,  57,  94,  316  ff.,  326, 

332  ff.,  336  ff.,  342  ff.,  394 
Press  Bureau,  47 
Secret  Service,  47,  197 
War    Propaganda   Department, 

398 

Am  si  nek  and  Company,  261 
Ancona,    sinking    of,   210,   214    ff.; 

Lansing  and  sinking  of,  230 
Andrew,  83 
Anglo-Saxons,  21 
Annie  Larsen,  121 
Appam,  265 
Arabia,  303,  306,  342 
Arabic,  sinking  of,  90,  144,  168,  173  5 
effect  of  sinking  of,   173   ff., 
248;  negotiations  concerning, 
176   ff.,   180  ff.,   187  ff.,   191 
ff.;     defense    of    sinking    of, 
181    ff.;    settlement  of,   212, 
217,   219,   227,   236 


Arbitration  Treaty,  24,  27 

Archibald,  James,  197  ff. 

Armenian,  sinking  of,  163 

Asquith,  Herbert,  298 

Associated  Press,  32  ff.,  51,  179,  221 

Atlanta,  102,  124,  338 

Atlantic,  87 

Austria-Hungary,  Germany  allied 
with,  2,  5;  Serbian  threat  to, 
7;  battle  front  of,  287;  de- 
sire for  peace  in,  348 

Bagdad,  20 

Bakmetieff,  141 

Balkans,  7 

Ballin,  409  ff. 

Baltimore,  266 

Baltimore  Sun,  38 

Bartelli,  261 

Baumgarten,  Prof.,  20 

Beachy  Head,  246 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  43 

Belgium,  invasion  of,  30,  59,  130, 
387;  atrocities  in,  39,  53; 
atrocities  of,  64;  American 
aid  to,  128,  267;  proposed 
restoration  of,  278,  287,  329, 
377,  392;  deportations  from, 
302,  305,  308  ff.,  339  ff. 

Berchtold,  Count,  7 

Berlin,  6,  36,  42,  46,  50,  53,  69,  71, 
95,  98  ff.,  145,  154,  162,  164, 
167  ff.  173,  178  ff.,  197,  214, 
220  ff.,  230  ff.,  243  ff.,  247, 
250,  254  ff.,  259,  262,  264,  283, 
285  ff.,  290,  292  ff.,  307,  309 
ff.,  314  ff.,  320,  322  ff.,  325, 
340,  351,  358,  368  ff.,  371,  373, 
375,  379,  400,  402,  407 

Bern  Freie  Zeitung,  44 

Bernstorff,  Count,  in  London,  1,  16; 
pre-war  policy  of,  1  ff.;  arbi- 
tration efforts  of,  6  ff. ;  Amer- 


419 


420 


INDEX 


lean  relations  with,  0;  peace 
efforts  of,  10  ff.,  60,  69;  ap- 
pointment of,  23,  28;  Roose- 
velt and,  28;  newspapermen 
and,  39  ff.;  Bryan  and,  68, 
75;  munition  traffic  and,  73; 
Col.  House  and,  79,  231,  270, 
281,  284,  290  ff.,  295  ff.,  373 
ff.;  forged  passports  and,  104; 
"conspiracies"  and,  108  ff., 
114,  119;  submarine  warfare 
and,  136  ff.,  358  ff. ;  Lusitania 
affair  and,  138,  149  ff.,  152  ff., 
222  ff.;  Lusitania  reports  of, 
159  ff.,  169,  171  ff.,  213  ff.; 
Lansing  and,  166,  172  ff.,  177, 
180  ff.,  205;  Arabic  affair 
and,  173,  188  ff.;  Arabic  re- 
ports of,  177  ff.,  180,  182  ff., 
189  ff.;  Grerman  telegram  on 
Arabic  affair  to,  179  ff.;  Ar- 
chibald affair  and,  197  ff.; 
Boy-Ed,  report  of,  201 ;  Sussex 
reports  of,  241  ff.,  244  ff., 
250  ff.,  264;  Bolo  affair  and, 
260;  Polish  relief  report  of, 
268;  mediation  reports  of, 
274  ff.,  279  ff.,  285  ff.,  295, 
353  ff.;  1916  election  and,  300 
ff.;  Commission  of  National 
Assembly  and,  313  ff.;  "Amer- 
ican opinion"  described  by, 
332  ff.;  Wilson's  speech  re- 
ported by,  372;  departure  of, 
393  ff.;  article  on,  394  ff.; 
arrival  in  Germany  of,  403; 
German  examination  of,  403 
ff. 

Bethlehem  Steel  Works,  95 

Bethmann-Hollweg,  von,  257,  311, 
325,  331  ff.,  346,  379,  388  ff., 
403  ff. 

Bielaski,  Commissioner  Bruce,  44, 
111  ff.,  121  ff. 

Bismarck,  2,  4,  11 

Bissing,  von,  339 

Bode,  112 

Bopp,  112,  120  ff. 

Bosch  Magneto  Company,  96  ff. 

Boston,  160,  162,  333,  337,  340 


Boston  Evening  Transcript,  38,  335, 
351 

Boy-Ed,  Captain,  office  of,  41 ;  recall 
of,  111,  123,  201  ff.;  conspira- 
cies of,  .114,  200;  Rintelen 
and,  122  ff.;  attacks  on,  200 

Bremen,  94 

Bridgeport  Projectile  Company,  95 

Brinken,  von,  112,  120  ff. 

British  Royal  Mail  Steam  Packet 
Company,  182 

Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle,  38,  335,  347 

Brown,  Cyril,  338  ff. 

Bryan,  William  Jennings,  26;  char- 
acter of,  27,  68;  pacifism  of, 
68,  75,  157;  submarine  war- 
fare and,  131  ff. ;  peace  efforts 
of,  144  ff. ;  resignation  of, 
151,  155  ff.,  161,  169,  228,  264 

Bukarest,  312 

Bulgaria,  287 

Blilow,  Prince,  3,  4,  7,  24,  275 

Btinz,  Dr.,  102,  112 

"Bureau  for  Employment  of  German 
Workers,"  116 

Burode,  203 

Cairo,  395 

Canada,  112  ff.,  117  ff.,  336 

Canadian  Bank,  401 

Canadian  Pacific  Railway,  120 

Capelle,  von,  263 

Caprivi,  2  ff. 

Carolyn,  86 

Carranza,  77 

Cavell,  Edith,  53,  339 

"Central  Office  for  Foreign  Service," 
42 

"Central  Purchasing  Company,"  36, 
165 

Charlotte,  343 

Chicago,  102,  116,  121,  123,  338 

Chicago  Herald,  335 

Chicago  Tribune,  38,  47 

China,  17,  99 

Christiania,   401    ff. 

Cincinnati,  28 

"Citizen's  Committee  for  Food  Ship- 
ments," 259 

Claussen,  M.  B.,  48 

Clemenceau,  64 


INDEX 


421 


Cleveland,  116,  140 

Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York, 

84 
Commission  of  Inquiry,  43  ff.,  49, 

111,  116,  124  ff. 
Commission  of  National  Assembly, 

332,  368,  376,  379,  389,  404 

ff.,  408,  410,  414 
Congress,  72,  95,  123,  144,  206,  214 

ff.,  234,  236  ff.,  301,  309,  352 

ff.,  379 

Constantinople,  2,  68,  406,  415 
Copenhagen,  402 
Creel,  George,  47 
Current  History,  345 
Czechs,  122 


Dacher,  112,  125 

Danger  Zone,  4 

Declaration  of  London,  90,  127,  134, 
136,  172,  256 

Democratic  Party,  17,  26,  34,  62, 
235  ff. 

Denmark,  402 

Department  of  Justice,  111,  116 

Dernburg,  Dr.,  appointment  of,  36; 
duties  of,  36;  failure  of  mis- 
sion of,  40,  80;  propaganda 
of,  41  ff.,  44  ff.,  50,  55  ff., 
115;  funds  of,  47;  unpopu- 
larity of,  72,  145;  submarine 
warfare  and,  137;  Lusitania 
affair  defended  by,  140 ;  with- 
drawal of,  146,  162,  164  ff., 
215;  Bernstorff  supported  by, 
168 

Deutsche  Bank,  100 

Deutsche  Tageszeitung,  383  ff. 

Deutscher  Verein,  302 

Deutschland,  265  ff.,  273,  281,  315, 
337 

Dewey,  Admiral,  102 

De  Wiart,  Carton,  340 

Diedrichs,  Admiral,  15 

Dieppe,  246  ff. 

Dobrudja,  288 

Dohna,  Count,  265 

"Dollar  Diplomacy,"  IT 

Dover,  37 


Dumba,  Dr.,  116;  peace  efforts  of, 
155  ff.,  169,  192;  Archibald 
affair  and,  198  ff.;  recall  of, 
199,  210,  215 

Dunele,  181 

Duneyre,  83 

Dungeness,  246 

East  Asiatic  Squadron,  15 

Eastern  Policy,  2,  12 

Eckhart,  von,  115 

Eir,  83,  86 

Eitel  Friedrich,  265 

Ekengren,  406 

Encirclement  Policy,  3 

England,  43,  71,  88,  94,  179,  194, 
240;  German  relations  with, 
1  ff.,  36 ;  Venezuela  affair  and, 
16;  cables  cut  by,  38;  inter- 
national law  violated  by,  40, 
80;  propaganda  expenses  of, 
47;  American  press  and,  51 
ff.,  333;  American  relations 
with,  67,  190,  215,  217  ff., 
257,  264,  299,  305;  blockade 
by,  81  ff.,  92  ff.,  99,  103,  127 
ff.,  132,  145,  153,  164,  218, 
229,  232  ff.,  235,  259,  264,  276 
ff.,  281,  283,  343,  382;  Wilson 
and,  171,  256  ff.,  309;  Amer- 
ican notes  to:  February  22, 

1915,  134    ff.;    January    18, 

1916,  225;  July  21,  1915,  226; 
October  21,  1915,  276  ff.;  Lan- 
sing's note  to,   76;    debt  of, 
186;  merchantmen  armed  by, 
232;    Polish   relief   and,    267 
ff.;    mediation   and,    275    ff., 
289,  306;   resources  of,  335; 
submarine  warfare  and,  341, 
413;    peace   feeling   in,   348; 
wheat  embargo  against,  352; 
peace    terms    of,    374,    376; 
American    financial    aid    of, 
382 

English  Press,  16,  J9,  305,  334  ff., 

337,  369 
propaganda,   30 
Secret  Police,  196 
White  Book,  233 


422 


INDEX 


Entente  Note,  quotations  from,  6  ff. 
Entente  Powers,  see  England,  France 

Falmouth,  92 

Fatherland,  39,  52 

Fay,  Lt.,  109,  112,  115,  124  ff.,  199, 
203 

Federal  Reserve  Act,  93 

Federal  Reserve  Board,  308,  331, 
335 

Five  Years  War,  2,  6,  13  ff.,  19, 
26,  29 

Flood,  Representative,  75 

Folkestone,  246  ff. 

Ford,  Henry,  344 

Franc-tireurs,  64 

France,  3,  38,  240;  German  relations 
with,  8,  5;  desire  for  war  in, 
7;  propaganda  expenses  of, 
47;  munitions  sent  to,  122; 
mediation  and,  231;  pacifist 
agitation  in,  261  ff.;  Ameri- 
can sympathy  for,  333;  re- 
sources of,  335;  public  opin- 
ion in,  348;  peace  terms  of, 
374,  376,  377;  hope  of  Amer- 
ican aid  in,  382  ff.;  American 
army  in,  413 

Francis- Ferdinand,  Archduke,  35 

Frederick,  Emperor,  1 

Frederick  the  Great,  66 

Free  Poland,  350 

Frelinghuysen,  Senator,  197 

Friedjung,  Heinrich,  6,  15 

Friedrich  VIII,  393  ff.,  398  ff.,  406 

Fritzen,  112 

Fuehr,  Dr.  Alexander,  48  ff.,  57, 
115;  duties  of,  165;  Hoff  af- 
fair and,  195  ff. 

Gerard,  Ambassador,  Lusitama  af- 
fair and,  156,  158;  German 
memorandum  to,  181  ff.; 
memorandum  from,  183;  sub- 
marine warfare  and,  230,  245, 
250,  254  ff.;  return  of,  293 
ff.;  negotiations  with,  306  ff., 
313  ff.,  854,  375,  396,  406  ff. 

Gerhardt,  Meyer,  40,  49 ;  mission  of, 
151,  154  ff.,  162,  168,  315 

German-Americans,  22  ff.,  72,  94, 
ff.,  152,  186,  200,  209,  300, 


302,  332  ff.;  illegal  activities 
of,  101,  105;  Red  Cross  work 
of,  165 

German- American  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce, 85,  300 

Press,  52 
German  Embassy  in  London,  1,  395 

Embassy  in  Washington,  24, 
148,  168,  195  ff. 

Foreign  Office,  5,  14  ff.,  42,  122, 
154,  165,  168,  172  ff.,  187,  211 
"Information  Service,"  48 

Mercantile  Marine,  124 
"Peace,"  59  ff.,  383 

Red  Cross,  36,  40,  47,  140,  151, 
165,  300 

Union,  85 

Germany,  policy  of,  1  ff.;  English 
relations  with,  1  ff.;  Ameri- 
can relations  with,  1,  6  ff.,  9 
ff.,  10,  14,  16  ff.,  29  ff.,  71, 
91,  128  ff.,  150,  234  ff.,  250, 
258,  266,  309,  311,  331  ff.; 
French  relations  with,  3,  5; 
Russian  relations  with,  2  ff.; 
statesmen  of,  4;  world  poli- 
tics of,  4  ff. ;  attempt  to  avoid 
war  by,  7;  spirit  of,  8;  Phil- 
ippine affair  and,  15,  30;  Ve- 
nezuelan affair  and,  16,  30; 
propaganda  of,  42  ff.;  object 
of  war  in,  60;  opinion  of  Wil- 
flon  in,  61  ff.;  wireless  sta- 
tions of,  65  ff.;  American 
notes  to,  78,  132  ff.,  134  ff., 
147  ff.,  155,  158  ff.,  166  ff., 
218,  220,  248  ff.,  252  ff.; 
finances  of,  80,  98  ff.;  Amer- 
ican exports  to,  80  ff.;  con- 
spiracies of,  101  ff.;  conces- 
sions of,  236;  1916  conditions 
in,  287,  343;  1916  peace  offer 
of,  312  ff.,  376  ff.;  American 
offer  refused  by,  322  ff.;  sub- 
marine warfare  adopted  by, 
331  ff.,  353,  358  ff.,  369,  372 
ff.,  375,  378  ff.,  382  ff.,  387 
ff.,  405;  American  Press  and, 
333  ff.;  desire  for  peace  in, 
348;  rupture  of  American  re- 
lations with,  380 


INDEX 


423 


Goltz,  Herat  von  der,  112,  118 
Goschen,  Sir  Edward,  348 
Greece,  violation  of,  53,  334 

Hague  Conference,  6,  66,  71  flf.,  182 
ff.,  190,  247,  292 

Hale,  William  Bayard,  48,  116,  338, 
346 

Halifax,  399  ff.,  406 

Hamburg,  20,  35,  92,  101 

Hamburg-Amerika  Line,  48,  73,  80 
flf.,  101  ff.,  105,  114,  199 

Hamburger  Nachrichten,  297 

Hampton  Eoads,  265 

Hapag  Case,  215 

Harding,  Senator,  384 

Hatzfeldt,  Prince,  393 

Hatzfeldt,  Huberta,  400 

Hay,  John,  14,  17 

Hearst,  William  Randolph,  68, 
260  ff. 

Hearst  Press,  38,  196,  261,  336  ff., 
343,  346,  351,  353 

Hecker,  Rittmeister,  40,  47;  Red 
Cross  work  of,  165 

Helfferich,  Karl,  172,  254  ff.,  286, 
310,  368  ff.,  381,  392 

Henry,  Prince,  23 

Hermann,  F.  &  Co.,  88 

Hilmy,  Khedive  Abbas,  396 

Hindenburg,  Marshal,  410 

Hirsch,  Gilbert,  349 

Hoff,  Alfred,  195 

Hofmeister,  112 

Holland,  81,  157,  228;  allied  meas- 
ures against,  334 

Holstein,  von,  5 

Hong  Kong,  102 

Horn,  Werner,  112,  117 

House,  Col.,  29,  69  ff.,  78,  242  ff., 
270;  mediation  supported  by, 
79,  231,  275,  277,  284  ff.,  291 
ff.,  295,  305  ff.,  313  ff.,  353, 
382,  390 ;  Bernstorff  and,  205, 
231,  257,  264,  298;  neutrality 
of,  228;  German  peace  offer 
and,  323  ff.,  328  ff.,  378 

Huerta,  77,  123,  200  ff. 

Hughes,  Charles  Evans,  243,  281, 
284,  296,  298,  300  ff.,  369 

"Hull  Insurance,"  88 


Igel,  von,  262  ff.,  274 

India,  German  plots  in,  112,  121 

Indianapolis  News,  351 

International  Commission  of  In- 
quiry, 184 

Law,  40,  132,  145,  257,  271 
News  Service,  336,  346 

Ireland,  131,  136;  Easter  rebellion 
in,  334,  372 

Italy,  81,  376;  Austrian  relations 
with,  5;  English  relations 
with,  5 

Iturbide,  General,  161 

Jaeger,  113 

Jagow,  von,  167  ff.,  180,  204,  286, 

292,  303  ff.,  310  ff.,  315,  348, 

388 
Japan,  policy  of,  3,   17;    American 

relations  with,  15,  115;  entry 

into  war  of,  48  ff. 
Java,  121 

Joffre,  Marshal,  335 
Journal  of  Commerce,  335,  351 
Jusserand,  M.,  19 

Kaiser  William,  note  from,  256  ff., 
296;  submarine  warfare  and, 
293;  mediation  and,  294; 
Bernstorff  and,  406  ff. 

Kaltschmidt,  Albert,  112,  119  ff. 

Karlsruhe,   54 

Kerensky,  383 

Kirkwall,  198 

Kitchener,  Lord,  128 

Kleist,  von,  172 

Knox,  Philander,  17  ff. 

Koeter,  112 

Konig,  Capt.,  265  ff. 

Kreuznach,  409 

Kronprine  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  265 

Kruger  Telegram,  3 

Ktthlman,  von,  315,  414  ff. 

Lake  Erie,  118 
Ontario,  118 

Lamar,  112 

Lansing,  Robert,  44,  200,  205,  241, 
265,  306,  316,  393;  German 
note  to,  110;  appointment  of, 
156;  qualities  of,  157;  Lust- 


424 


INDEX 


tama  negotiations  and,  164, 
166,  169,  172  S.,  181,  213  ff., 
219  ff.,  222;  Arabic  negotia- 
tions with,  174,  177,  180  ff., 
183  ff.,  188,  190;  January, 
1916,  note  of,  225  ff.,  228  ff.; 
Sussex  and,  264;  Anglo- 
American  agreement  and,  264 
ff. ;  Belgian  deportations  and, 
308,  340;  peace  note  and,  317 
ff.,  320,  323;  submarine  war- 
fare and,  327,  342,  379 

Law,  Bonar,  382 

League  of  Nations,  270  ff.,  291,  326, 
384  ff.,  403 

League  to  Enforce  Peace,  345 

Lechartier,  G.,  43 

Le  Havre,  246,  340 

Lester,  Capt.,  49 

Liebenfels,   113 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  43 

Lloyd-George,  David,  298 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  297,  355,  357 

London,  1,  19,  54,  69  ff.,  164,  187, 
195,    209,   231,    337    ff.,    340, 
369,  395,  406 
Daily  Graphic,  247 
Daily  Telegraph,  139 
Morning  Post,  334 
Times,  31 

Long,  Breckenridge,  393 

Long  Island,  65 

Lorraine,  329 

Los  Angeles,  338 

Liibau  Bureau,  116 

Luckenbach,  86 

Ludendorf,  General,  286,  405,  408, 
410  ff. 

Ludentz,  112 

Lusitania,  effect  of  sinking  of,  30 
ff.,  56,  141  ff.,  150  ff.,  162, 
166,  175,  248,  259,  280,  341, 
386;  sailing  of,  138;  sinking 
of,  138  ff.;  defence  of  sinking 
of,  149;  negotiations  concern- 
ing, 138,  149  ff.,  152  ff.,  159 
ff.,  169,  171  ff.,  178,  190  ff., 
212  ff.,  215  ff.,  221  ff.,  227  ff., 
236,  239,  255,  264,  274 

•McAdoo,  William,  317 


McClure,  259  ff. 

McCumber,  Senator,  383  ff. 

Macao,  103 

Mach,  von,  259  ff. 

Madden,  112 

Manchester  Guardian,  337 

Manchuria,  17 

Manila,   15,   102,  150 

Mannheimer        Versicherungsgesell- 
schaft,  88 

Marina,  303,  306,  342 

Marne,  battle  of,  8,  11,  59,  383,  390 

Marschall,  2 

Martin,  112 

Matuschka,  Countess  Manfred,  400 

Maumee,  83 

Mechlenburg,  Dr.,  49 

Mediterranean,  English  power  on,  5 

Meloy,  113 

Metropolitan  Club,  35,  265 

Mexico,  77,  115,  161;  punitive  expe- 
dition into,  242  ff. ;  American 
relations  with,  304,  306 
Dispatch,  234,  380  ff.,  403,  406 

Michaelis,  401  ff.,  414  ff. 

Milwaukee,  23 

Free  Press,  352 

Monroe  Doctrine,  14,  17,  20,  356 

Montenegro,  sacrifice  of,  334 

Morgan,  J.  P.  &  Co.,  98,  186 

Munich,  36 


Nauen,  156 
Nelson,  Senator,  111 
New  England,  342 
New  Hampshire,  270,  284  ff. 
New  Jersey,  25,  65 
New  London,  260 
Newmann,  113 
Newport,  267,  284,  296 
New  Republic,  81 
New  York,  38  ff.,  47,  80  ff.,  84  ff., 
88,   94,    102   ff.,   118   ff.,    122, 
124,  139,  142,  160  ff.,  165,  186 
ff.,    231,   234,   261,   294,    308, 
313,  333,  340,  350  ff.,  396  ff. 
American,  38,  337,  346 
Evening  Post,  38,  335,  349  ff. 
Evening  Sun,  335,  346 
Evening  Telegram,  38,  335 


INDEX 


425 


New  York  Exchange,  317 
Staats-Zeitung,  39 
Globe,  38,  335 

Herald,  38,  200,  236,  335,  356 
Journal,  261 
Press,  32,  41,  163 
Sun,    38,    189,   292,   335,   351 
Times,  38,  335,  339,  345  ff.,  348 

351 
Tribune,  38,  333  ff.,  343  ff.,  394 

ff. 
World,  161,  197,  222,  294,  296, 

338,  340,  347,   351 
Noordam,  37 
Norddeutsche      Versicherungsgesell- 

schaft,   88 

Northcliffe,  Lord,  51 
Norway,  402 


Olsen,  113 

"Open  Door"  Policy,  14,  17 
Oriental  Policy,  see  Eastern  Policy 
Overman,  Senator,  114 


Paderewski,  Ignace,  349  S. 

Panama  Canal,  14 

Pan-German  Party,  20 

Papen,  von,   office  of,  41;   financial 

affairs  of,  46,  96 ;  conspiracies 

of,   108  ff.,   114,   116  ff.,   198 

ff.;  recall  of,  111,  202  ff.,  215; 

Rintelen  and,  122;  attack  on, 

200 

Paris,  69,  209,  231,  261,  371 
Parker,  Sir  Gilbert,  52 
Pavenstedt,  261  ff. 
Peace  of  Portsmouth,  14 
Philadelphia,    116,    140,    142,    152, 

160,  162,  333 

Philadelphia  Inquirer,  336 
North  American,  350 
Public  Ledger,  335,  340,  351 
Philippines,  American  policy  toward, 

15;  Taft  in,  17 
Pittsburgh,  116 

Post,  351 
Plage,  Herr,  49 
Poland,  plan  for  relief  of,  267  ff.; 

autonomy  of,  349  ff.,  376 


Poppinghaus,  112 
Posen,  350 

Prince  Waldemar,  83 
Princess  Royal  of  England,  1 
Providence  Journal,  105,   110,  200, 
335 

Ram  Chandra,  112 

Ratcliffe,  S.  K.,  337 

Reed,  Senator,  46 

Reinsurance  Treaty,  5 

Republican  National  Committee,  274 
Party,  17,  26  ff.,  235,  356 

Rheims  Cathedral,  destruction  of,  54 

Riano,  Senor,  35 

Rintelen,  Franz,  109,  112  ff.,  122 
ff.,  199  ff.,  203  ff. 

Risikoflotte,  4 

Ritz-Carlton,  42,  140  ff.,  165,   198 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  17,  161,  224, 
243;  policies  of,  13  ff.; 
Venezuela  affair  and,  16; 
"trusts"  and,  26;  Bernstorff's 
personal  relations  with,  28; 
Lusitania  affair  and,  145; 
Russo-Japanese  war  and,  281 ; 
1916  election  and,  297  ff. 

[Rotterdam,  37 

Rumania,  284  ff.,  287  ff.;  sacrifice 
of,  334;  conquest  of,  343,  376 

Ruroede,  Carl,  112 

Russia,  German  relations  with,  2 
ff. ;  desire  for  war  in,  7 ;  Jap- 
anese relations  with,  17;  war 
begun  by,  36;  German  con- 
spiracy against,  120;  Poland 
oppressed  by,  350;  peace 
terms  for,  376  ff.;  revolution 
in,  383,  404;  Bolshevism  in, 
403 

Russo-Japanese  War,   14,  281 

St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat,  351 
St.  Paul  Pioneer  Presi,  351 
St.  Regis  Hotel,  199 
Salonika,  288 
San  Francisco,  120  ff.,  338 
Sayville  Wireless  Station,  53,  65 
Scandinavia,  81,  157;   Allied  meas- 
ures against,  334 


426 


INDEX 


Scandinavia-American  Line,  82 

Schack,  von,  112,  120  ff. 

Scheele,  112,  124 

Schiff,  Jacob,  139  ff. 

Scholtz,  112,  125 

Schurz,  Carl,  22 

Serbia,  war  declared  on,  7;  sacri- 
fice of,  334 

Seven  Years  War,  8 

Sherman  Act,  124 

Siam,  121 

Sielcken,  Hermann,  25 

Silesia,  356 

Smith,  Louis  J.,  120 

80  Ionian,  113 

Somme  Front,  288,  338,  343 

South  America,  20,  47,  63,  57,  89 

Spain,  81,  102,  312 

Spanish-American  War,  13,  15,  179 

Speyer,  James,  68 

Springfield  Republican,  333 

Stahl,  113 

Starnberg,  35  S. 

Stegler,  112,  201,  203 

Sternberg,  113  ff.,  125 

Stockholm,  404  ff. 

Stone,  Senator,  75,  235  ff.;  Wilson's 
note  to,  337  ff. 

Straus,  Oscar,  68  ff. 

Struve,  Gothein  &  Co.,  263 

Stumm,  von,  313,  327 

Stuttgart,  96  ff. 

Suedenhorst,  Zwiedeneck  von,  210 

Sutsetf,  236  ff. ;  sinking  of,  241,  243, 
245  ff. ;  result  of  sinking  of, 
248,  254,  257,  379;  negotia- 
tions over,  248  ff.,  306;  set- 
tlement of,  263  ff.,  270,  276, 
293,  340,  365 

Switzerland,  112 

Swope,  Herbert,  294,  296,  838  ff., 
249 


Taft,    William,    policy   of,    17    ff.; 

Bernstorff's  personal  relations 

with,  28 

Tammany  Hall,  406  ff. 
Tauschen,  Hans,  112,  118 
Taylor,  Dr.  E.  A.,  260 
Thierichens,  113 


Tirpitz,  von,  4,   143,  223,  244  ff., 

387 

Trans-Ocean  Bureau,  154 
Treaty  of  Amiens,  59 
Triple  Alliance,  2  ff.,  5 
Tuckerton  Wireless  Station,  53,  65 
Tumulty,  34 
Turkey,  287,  376 


TJ-Boat  campaign,  opening  of,  9; 
prosecution  of,  10  ff. ;  negotia- 
tions concerning,  27;  "armed 
merchantmen"  and,  222,  224 
ff.,  230,  237  ff.,  258,  260,  354; 
surrender  of,  268,  277 ;  Amer- 
ican coast,  267  ff.;  proposed 
reopening  of,  282  ff.,  288,  292 
ff.,  296,  298  ff.,  303  ff.,  310 
ff.,  314  ff.,  325  ff.,  330,  346 
ff.,  358;  German  desire  for, 
330  ff.,  408;  reopening  of,  331 
ff.,  353,  358  ff.,  369,  372  ff., 
375,  378  ff.,  380,  382  ff.,  387 
ff.,  405 

U-53,  visit  of,  267  ff.,  296,  337;  pi- 
racy of,  342 

Ultimatum  of  April  18,  1916,  379 

United  States,  German  relations 
with,  1,  6  ff.,  9  ff.,  14,  16,  18 
ff.,  29  ff.,  60,  71,  91,  128  ff., 
150,  234  ff.,  250,  258,  266,  309, 
311,  331  ff.;  pre-war  condi- 
tions in,  13,  29;  pan- Ameri- 
can policy  of,  14  ff. ;  Japanese 
relations  with,  14;  Philip- 
pine affair  and,  16;  char- 
acteristics of,  18;  English  re- 
lations with,  18  ff.,  21,  29, 
81,  128,  130;  Lusitania  affair 
and,  30  ff.,  50,  141  ff.,  150  ff., 
162,  166,  175,  248,  259,  280, 
S41,  386;  public  opinion  in, 
31  ff.,  58;  German  wireless 
stations  in,  65  ff.;  neutrality 
of,  58  ff.,  65  ff.;  munition 
traffic,  71  ff.,  75  ff.;  German 
notes  to,  73  ff.,  134  ff.,  149, 
158,  231  ff.,  245  ff.,  251  ff., 
257;  German  propaganda  in, 
42  ff.,  89,  259  ff.;  propaganda 


INDEX 


427 


work  of,  43  ff. ;  German  ships 
coaled  in,  73  ff.;  German 
finances  in,  80;  port  control 
in,  83  ff.;  German  economic 
activities  in,  80  ff.;  German 
dyestuffs  exported  to,  99; 
German  conspiracies  in:  coal- 
ing, 101  ff.;  forged  passports, 
103  ff.;  bomb  outrages,  105 
ff.,  112  ff.;  submarine  war- 
fare against,  131  ff.,  222,  224 
ff.,  230,  237  ff.,  258,  260,  282 
ff.,  288,  292  ff.,  296,  298  ff., 
303  ff.,  310  ff.,  314  ff.,  325 
ff.,  330,  340  ff.,  358,  369,  372 
ff.,  375,  378  ff.,  380,  382  ff., 
387  ff.,  405;  Arabic  affair 
and,  173  ff.;  Arabic  negotia- 
tions with,  176  ff.;  English  in- 
trigue in,  195  ff.;  Ancona  af- 
fair in,  210;  Sussex  affair  in, 
236;  desire  for  peace  in,  344; 
rupture  of  German  diplomat- 
ic relations  with,  380  ff.; 
army  of,  413 
University  of  Berlin,  28 


Vaneboro,  117 

Vaterland,  35 

Venezuela,  American  relations  with, 
13 ;  English  and  German  ulti- 
matum to,  16 

Vera  Cruz,  21  ff. 

Verdun,  343 

Versailles,  Wilson  at,  10,  61,  63  ff., 
369  ff.,  386  ff.;  Peace  Con- 
ference at,  14,  36,  130;  Peace 
of,  63,  196,  360,  387 

Vienna,  156,  198,  210,  351 

Viereck,  G.  S.,  39 

Villa,  Pancha,  242 


Wall  Street,  26,  162,  190,  355 

Warburg,  Paul,  140 

Warm,  198 

Washington,  D.  C.,  6,  19,  23  ff.,  33, 
35  ff.,  40  ff.,  50,  60  ff.,  66,  72, 
90,  140  ff.,  148,  161,  168,  181, 


196,  211,  219,  222,  231,  241, 
243,  247,  252,  254,  257,  261, 
265,  290,  293,  306,  310,  326, 
342,  369,  378,  380  ff.,  389, 
393  ff.,  397,  400  ff.,  406  ff., 
409,  414 

Washington  Post,  38 
Wedell,  H.  A.  von,  112,  203 
Welland  Canal  Case,  118,  262 
Western  Policy,  1  ff.,  12 
West  Prussia,  350 
White,  Andrew  D.,  15 
Whitehouse,  Mrs.  Norman,  44 
Wiegand,  von,  338 
Wilson,  President,  31,  61,  63  ff.; 
character  of,  8,  25  ff.,  28  ff.; 
English  influence  on,  8,  217; 
Vera  Cruz  speech  of,  21  ff.; 
public  opinion  and,  34,  62; 
foreign  loans  prohibited  by, 
46;  neutrality  of,  58  ff.,  65, 
130,  136,  227  ff.;  munition 
traffic  and,  72  ff.;  Lusitania 
speech  of,  142  ff.;  Lusitania 
negotiations  with,  144,  150 
ff.,  161  ff.,  169  ff.,  212  ff.,  216 
ff.,  226  ff.;  Arabic  affair  and, 
178  ff.,  184  ff.,  189;  policy  of, 
194;  description  of,  198;  Con- 
gress opened  by,  206  ff.;  An- 
cona affair  and,  210  ff. ;  au- 
tocracy of,  224;  marriage  of, 
225;  mediation  efforts  of,  231, 
243,  256  ff.,  267,  274  ff.,  291, 
303  ff.,  309  ff.,  325  ff.,  328  ff., 
344,  353  ff.,  373  ff.,  381  ff., 
386  ff.,  390,  403,  412  ff.; 
candidacy  of,  234  ff.,  243 
ff.,  256,  267,  275,  279,  286, 
291,  296;  changed  attitude 
of,  235;  submarine  warfare 
and,  237  ff.,  242,  252,  303; 
Sussex  and,  242,  247  ff., 
250;  Kaiser's  letter  to,  267, 
296;  Polish  relief  and,  267 
ff.;  League  of  Nations  pro- 
posed by,  270  ff. ;  reelection 
of,  299  ff.;  Belgian  deporta- 
tions and,  302  ff.;  German 
peace  offer  supported  by,  316 


428  INDEX 

ff.;  peace  note  of,  318  ff.,  355  Woolpart,  112 

ft.;  peace  speech  by,  359  ff.;  Wunmerburg,  112 

German  relations  broken  by,  «YeUow  pr.sfl  „  10fi 
380;  Germany  condemned  by, 

385  ff.  Zimmermann,    115,    156,    221,    307, 
Wolff  Bureau,  25,  51,  154  310,  321,  327,  348  ff.,  396 


Library 
D 

619 


